


The Meaning In Silence (The 10-year rewrite)

by ice_hot_13



Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-07-17 07:30:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 52,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16090916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ice_hot_13/pseuds/ice_hot_13
Summary: Bumblebee's suddenly going after Mikaela with a vengence, and Sam can't figure out why. Turns out, he had no idea what he was getting himself into. (The 10-year anniversary re-write of The Meaning In Silence)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Meaning In Silence](https://archiveofourown.org/works/853432) by [ice_hot_13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ice_hot_13/pseuds/ice_hot_13). 



> Hi! Back in 2009, I wrote The Meaning in Silence, and now that it's coming up on its 10-year anniversary, I wanted to re-write it, to thank all the people who read it the first time and were so encouraging that I went on to keep writing for another ten years, even though the first fic had its flaws.  
> (Reading the original is not necessary, just re-writing it so it's better and a remix!)

The hospital loomed behind Sam, somehow no further away every time he looked over his shoulder. It took an entire two city blocks before Sam felt the lights recede from his back, before the darkness surrounding him felt complete, and like no one in the hospital could see him anymore.

He wasn’t entirely alone, at least not continuously; every now and then, headlights washed over the sidewalk, flashing out of the darkness before delving back into it. Already, one of his friends had driven by and spotted him, stopping to ask if Sam wanted a ride someplace, but Sam had declined. No, he had a ride coming along soon. He didn’t mention that he was planning to either lecture it to death or ignore it completely.

Sam’s leaden guilt kept him company, in the meantime; as angry as he was, as much blame as there was to put on shoulders that weren’t his, still – still, it came back to him. Sam was the origin, the keystone that brought together things that never would have intersected on their own. He was the one who brought Mikaela into his life, and he didn’t keep her safe from it.

It was minor, this time. This time that might have been the beginning, or maybe just the most recent escalation, maybe it wasn’t the beginning he wanted it to be. Maybe he’d had his eyes closed to it this year, not wanting to see the violent clash of different sections of his life. This year had been rife with near misses and close calls, of almost-explained-away and could-have-been-accidental. This time wasn’t a nearly, wasn’t an almost; this time, Mikaela had spent her evening in the hospital, face wan under the lights, telling Sam she was sure it was an accident, not to worry, and her eyes had asked him not why he wasn’t protecting her, because she thought he was, because she thought this was the best he could do when really he should have been doing so much more, but asking him to please just shield her a little more.

The quiet rev of an engine soon invaded the silence, humming along just behind Sam. He could see the wink of yellow out of the corner of his eye; he clenched his jaw and refused to look.

“I do _not_ understand why you have such a problem with her!” Sam snapped, unable to keep hold of his silence any longer. Bumblebee gave a small rev of his engine, still slinking along after Sam. “Don’t even give me that ‘our last day together’ shit, because you’re only going for a month, and you’ve been doing _this_ for a _year!”_

Sam strode along faster, although it was probably pointless to try and lose a car. He had feverishly angry visions of diving into the bushes, tearing through the park, probably just running into Bee parked on the next side street patiently. Sam just kept storming along for another few blocks until he arrived at the foot of his driveway. Bumblebee whined again, engine moaning pitifully. Sam recognized the sound.

“No, Bee, I’m not okay. If you don’t cut this shit out, who knows how long she’ll stick around?” Bumblebee gave a guttural little sound. “That had _better_ not be what you’re trying to do!” Sam spun around, finally facing Bumblebee, wishing he had somewhere specific to glare at. His gaze darted between the headlights and the windshield uselessly. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, if you’re mad or bored or jealous or what, but God, Bee, she’s lucky it’s only her ankle that’s broken!”

Bumblebee crept forward, nosed Sam with his bumper, extremely gently.

“Maybe we’re better off without you, before Mikaela breaks her neck!” Headlights blinked on and off, and Bumblebee receded a few feet, cowed.

The front door of the house opened behind Sam, lights pooling on either side of him. “Son, fighting with your car isn’t a normal thing to do,” his father called over from the porch. Sam sighed, sent a last withering look at Bumblebee, and stalked across the yard. “Sam-” he heard, and Sam heaved another sigh, sidestepping so his foot landed on the path instead of the grass.

“None of this is normal,” Sam grumbled as he walked into the house, barely a foot into the entry before he had to step around boxes. “Isn’t it a little early to be packing?”

“There’s only a month until you have to leave, Sam, and I want to start repainting.” His father, blunt as usual, settled back onto the couch beside Sam’s mother. “Why are you back so late?”

“Hospital.” Sam heard a loud rev of whiny protest from the driveway, and spun to face the window. “Quit it, Bee!” he yelled at the closed window.

“The hospital?” His mother’s hand flew to her throat. “Sam?!”

“It’s fine, Mom. It was for Mikaela, and she’s fine. She… fell. Broke her ankle. She’s totally fine now, she’s at home.” He turned for the stairs, facing another maze of boxes. “I’m gonna go call her, though.”

“Tell her we hope she feels better soon!” his mother called after him, “and I have a great German Chamomile for injury pain, if she wants some-” He heard her getting up, already starting to hunt for an essential oil. No doubt Mikaela would have a package on her doorstep within a day, with a diffuser and more essential oils than she’d know what to do with. His mother wasn’t into pyramid schemes so much as she was into stealing their ideas, buying similar products online, and giving them away more than selling them.

Sam continued upstairs, ignoring the flashes of headlights that appeared on the walls like spotlights. He heard Bumblebee spinning his wheels on the driveway outside in frustration. He’d tried that on the grass, once, and Sam’s dad had all-but had an aneurysm.

 Sam’s bedroom was on the far side of the house of the driveway, and the walls remained dark even as the yard outside lit up with headlights. Mikaela picked up his call on the third ring, sounding weary.

“Feeling any better?” Sam asked, sitting on the side of his bed and picking at a loose threat in the bedspread. The guilt he’d been floating in had abruptly become too much for him to keep afloat in, dunking his head under and holding it there like a forceful wave. Sam had done this. Sam had brought her and Bee into his life at the same time and united them there under their desire to be near him, and the consequences were all because of him.

“Yeah, a lot.” She was lying, not even to preserve his feelings, just because she was too tired to come up with anything other than the simplest answer. Sam couldn’t blame her. “Don’t worry about me, Sam.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just, I’m really sorry. My car is trying to kill my girlfriend-”

“It could have been an accident, Sam.” Her placating tone was strained taut. “I mean, maybe the door locks are broken, the seat anchors loose-”

“And you just happened to get thrown out? Kaela, no. He did it on purpose. I’m really, _really_ sorry. I’m not going to let it happen again.” He didn’t miss the quick flash of yellow outside his window, and groaned. Bumblebee was doing a poor job of eavesdropping, as usual. “He’s going out to the Autobot’s city tomorrow to help them out for a month, so we’ll have some peace.” A little harsh, but he couldn’t reign it in.

“He’ll probably miss you,” Mikaela said, vaguely curious. Sam scowled, in no mood to find the feelings of an alien car robot amusing.

“Assuming I’ll let him anywhere around us afterwards,” he huffed. The silence was abruptly apparent; Sam realized he was more accustomed to hearing the soft whir of mechanics than the absence of it. He only noticed it when it left him, this time because Bumblebee had presumably just taken off to sulk in the garage.

“It’s weird, he’s usually so sweet.” To Sam alone, Mikaela didn’t add. Bumblebee was so strongly devoted to Sam, it was nothing short of infuriatingly baffling to see him go after Sam’s girlfriend like this. If he really cared about Sam, how could he?

“I’ll sort it out, I promise.”

“Are you going to tell the others? I mean, it could be a like…” she fumbled for a word, probably waffling between the vocabulary for humans and machines.

“Wiring thing? No, it’s all Bee. The only one I need to talk to is him.” Sam looked out the dark window. He couldn’t see the garage from here.

After he’d said goodnight to Mikaela, Sam lay on his bed, staring out the window without a view of the garage. While driving down the road that wound along the lake, Bumblebee had abruptly jerked, jolting Mikaela all the way out of the car. It had sent Sam scrambling, panicked, for a moment blaming himself and then suddenly being afraid of _Bee –_ for a moment, everything about him that was _Bee_ had fled Sam’s mind, and he was just – just scared.

When the soft hum of mechanics returned, Sam was tempted to close his eyes, feign sleep.

“You didn’t just scare her, you know,” he said aloud, knew Bee could hear him. “You made me scared of you.”

Was he still? He turned his back on Bee’s whirring mechanics outside the window, closed his eyes. He wasn’t afraid of Bee; he was angry, betrayed, wasn’t understanding _something,_ but that was it, wasn’t it: he knew there was something there to understand.

\--

Even the hospital had more lenient visiting hours than Mikaela's stepmom allowed, Sam thought grudgingly after he hung up the phone. Sure, it made sense that Amy wanted Mikaela to rest, but really, a _time slot?_ He was going to have to book it to get over there, too, because she lived four blocks away, and he was giving his car the silent treatment.

Not that it was doing much good. When Sam looked out the kitchen window, Bumblebee was waiting for him in the driveway, revving his engine impatiently. A glance at the oven clock told Sam that Bee should have left forty minutes ago, but had spent that time lingering in the driveway instead, trying to call Sam’s attention to himself. Sam hadn’t planned on saying goodbye.

“Fine,” he yelled at the window over the sink. It was closed; Bee could probably hear him though, and anyways, Sam lately had an impulse to shout at walls just out of frustration. “Just stop before you wake up my mom!”

Nearly twenty and still living at home wasn’t something Sam loved, exactly, but in a month he’d in the Autobot Watch Lockdown Program – Ratchet called it Autobot Protection, or for short, “Having good sense, Sam,” but Sam wasn’t buying that, not for a minute – and until then, he just had to contend with the fact that his mom was cranky if she woke up before nine on a Sunday. She had a schedule to keep, she would come downstairs complaining, conveniently not mentioning that the schedule was to stay up late on Saturdays watching movies and drinking margaritas in whatever flavors she could convince his dad to try, and sleeping in on Sundays until it was time for her yoga-brunch-gossip trifecta morning to begin.

Sam grabbed his phone and ignored his car keys, headed outside. He paused when his phone rang, bringing it to his ear.

“Hi, Mrs. Banes,” he said, listened for a moment, “yes, I’ll be on time for the eight-forty-five. Of course.” He reserved his sigh until after he’d hung up. Maybe he was already on some sort of lockdown, and just didn’t’ know it.

Bumblebee revved again to regain Sam’s attention. “Okay, what. What is it?” The door swung open, stopping just short of hitting him. “No, I don’t want a ride. I’m going to visit Mikaela, and I don’t wanting you committing homicide because you just can’t help yourself.” Another rev, softer this time. He’d never known how many different sounds a car engine could make, how nuanced it could be. “You’re already like, an hour late, anyways.”

There was a static sound. “Miss you,” Bee said. The low, broken-up voice came from somewhere in the hood, the sound like he was ripping apart cables to force the words out. Sam swung the door shut forcefully.

“You’re not supposed to talk! Do you want Ratchet to rip out all the cables you have left in there?” Sam heaved a sign, gaze heavenward. The hard part was that it had still felt like Bumblebee, after the fact. Bumblebee could lose his temper in childish ways, cowed by the consequences he himself had brought about; this was still his Bee, acting in a way that, while more extreme than anything he’d done before, could be easily extrapolated from previous behavior. It was still Bee, though, and he was sorry.

“I’ll miss you, Bee. You know I will.”

Maybe Bee hadn’t, though. Sam looked at him for a long moment, a jumbled mess of emotions roiling inside him; Sam felt a whole host of intense things, when Bee was around, feelings that lashed around like they were looking for an escape, and maybe it was just anger, but Sam didn’t want to admit to harboring rage towards his best friend. He didn’t know what it was, but it was born of confusion, of not knowing, and Sam had no words to express it.

The yellow Camaro sped out of sight over the hill, and Sam felt the rush of intensity fade away.  

\--

Half the reason the repairs to Bumblebee’s voice mod were taking so long was because they’d lost their sense of dire necessity. Ratchet didn’t seem to be in any big hurry, putting out bigger wildfires first and working his way back around to Bumblebee’s quiet, contained burning. Wifi let Bumblebee speak directly to his companions, hardly felt the absence of an audible voice around them. It was Sam, who Bee desperately wanted to speak to. He spent more time with Sam than anyone else, and as Bee had once put it, as fun as charades was, there was a reason language had been created. The fact that many of the things he wanted to say to Sam, he didn’t have words for, was irrelevant.

“I’ll be able to do it later, once I’m all set up,” Ratchet assured, after instructing Bee to sit and not move so the cables could be checked. The warehouse they were currently using as a makeshift home base wasn’t equipped to be a medical center, as Ratchet often complained, and his complaints were justified. There was nowhere to keep all his tools except on the floor – he’d briefly tried shelves, but their small size made them more of a hindrance than anything else, and Ikea probably wondered why so many returned shelving units had been oddly bent, like a massive hand had tried to grab something and just bent everything around it instead – the ceiling was too low for anyone’s comfort, and the furnishings were Spartan at best, with a cement block for an examination table and little else.

“The setup I’ll have in the city will be much better,” Ratchet was continuing. “The size, for starters-” Bee fidgeted, mentally rehearsing his question again. He was an open book, though, and Ratchet gave him a questioning look. “Oh, what is it?” he sighed.

[Do you really need me here a lot this month?] he finally projected up at Ratchet. Ratchet frowned.

“Where else are you planning on being?”

[Thought I’d go back and visit Sam, maybe.] Bee tried to shrug it off, but Ratchet was frowning at him more deeply.

“Is that such a good idea? Last I heard you were being – what was it? Oh, a dangerous nuisance.” At the wince this elicited from Bee, Ratchet rolled his eyes, a human trait he’d apparently added to his inventory liberally. “So it is true. I thought she was exaggerating.”

[Mikaela told you.] It wasn’t a question. Bumblebee had known she would. The moment he’d done it – so stupid, it had been so _stupid_ – he’d immediately felt the weight of everything that was about to come next, wanted to snatch the action back, snatch Mikaela back into the car and un-lose his patience.

“She was worried there was something wrong, but I assured her that no, nothing was physically wrong.” Ratchet’s implication was strong, and he stood still so he could stare Bumblebee down, unwavering.

[Nothing is _wrong,_ not emotionally or otherwise.] Speaking in silence had a way of robbing Bumblebee of expression. He wanted to be growling, and all he had was hard silence.

Ratchet didn’t dignify this with a response, turning to select a small laser he used for his diagnostic work from the row along the wall. Stored on the floor though they were, he was still impeccably organized. “Shall I warn Sam that the main danger to his girlfriend’s life is returning to him?”

[Actually…] Bumblebee looked up to expose his throat in response to Ratchet’s gesturing. [Don’t. Tell him, I mean. Please.] This earned him a questioning look. Bumblebee gave an inward sigh, and reluctantly explained what he wanted to do.

When he’d finished, Ratchet was silent for a few moments. “Not a good idea,” Ratchet shook his head. Bumblebee could only hope the disdain wouldn’t cause a laser to slip and slice off anything important. “And when he finds out?”

“He won’t!” Bumblebee managed to choke out, a struggle between the lasers Ratchet was using to repair the minute cables and the whine of metal grinding from his voice mod.

“I swear, Bumblebee, talk any more and I’ll _confiscate_ the remaining cables, understand?” Bee could only nod meekly. “Well, I’m not sure what you hope to gain from this.”

[I just feel like – maybe if we could start over.]

“There is no such thing as a completely new start,” Ratchet said, but his voice was far away, “wherever you go, Bee, there you are. You are the only thing you can never leave behind.”

Couldn’t he, though, Bee wondered, because sometimes he felt so unable to be himself that it was like he’d forgotten how.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Sam was almost wishing for Bee’s company, as he dragged himself along after Mikaela at the car show. He could have contacted Bee, knew it couldn’t have been all that difficult, but there was still something holding him back. He’d been scared of Bee; for a split second, he hadn’t known who Bee was, and there was something in that still churning beneath still waters, the not knowing, the something that he suddenly didn’t understand about Bumblebee. _There are things you don’t know about Bee,_ the incident had seemed to say, _they’re important and you aren’t seeing them._

He liked having Bee on these kinds of dates, though, had grown used to it. Mikaela loved car shows whole-heartedly, and Sam wanted to like the things she did, really. And she was so good about it, too; she was always beckoning him over, explaining to him what was unique about a particular car, pausing conversations to give him necessary definitions. She tried so hard to include him, to share with him, and Sam felt like he was falling short when he just couldn’t understand or, to be reluctantly honest, _care_ about car things. He liked the way her blue eyes lit up, absolutely, but he just didn’t see why painting an engine added to the aesthetic of the vintage MG, or whatever. Mostly, he didn’t like the way this made him feel the gap between them, because Sam wasn’t stupid; he knew they weren’t completely compatible. He just didn’t like facing that fact so head-on.

Maybe he shouldn’t want Bee there, though; Bee’s behavior had been escalading steadily, from occasional, maybe-playful bumps with a door to full on shutting it in front of her, from tricks with locks and seatbelts to brakes, from keeping the doors firmly closed to moving just before she could climb in. He didn’t want Bee here in their current state, but – before things had gotten bad, or maybe just before Sam had noticed – he was Sam’s ally, was all. They’d bring Bee as their car show entry and some of the time, Sam would hang back with him while Mikaela wandered around. When Bee explained car things, Sam always understood more clearly, and somehow – he cared more. Maybe Bee was just a more engaging storyteller, with analogies that made Sam laugh and oddly not-at-all-objective descriptions of car parts. It was easier, and why wouldn’t it be, Sam told himself. Bee was his best friend. Girlfriends weren’t best friends, they were – companions? Sam didn’t know, he’d never had one before. He wished things with Mikaela were as easy as they were with Bee, sometimes.

“Thank you for coming with me,” Mikaela said, when Sam dropped her off at home, opening the door of her beat-up pickup truck for her and helping her down. She touched his cheek, smiled at him in that softly affectionate way she had. Lately, it had started seeming a little sad. Maybe she could see the chasm between them, too. “I know car shows aren’t your thing and you just take me because you know I love it. It’s very sweet of you.”

Sometimes, lately, it felt like the sweet things she said to him could have been followed by a fond, wistful _I’ll always remember how you did that for me._ Sometimes, Sam wanted to pull her to him, all the way across the chasm, but it was just too far to reach.

            Sam kissed her goodbye and walked home, and just when he was reaching the point of starting to stew over things too much, he was home and his mother was meeting him at the door before he’d even had a chance to open it.

            “Have I got the greatest surprise for you!” She crowed. Sam tried to appear excited, he really did; his attempt probably wasn’t convincing, because she swatted at his shoulder. “Oh, come on! This is a _good_ surprise!” She’d said the same about the new lighting fixtures in the bathroom. And the new socks she’d gotten him. And her new bottle of window cleaner, essential-oil based. “Come on, come on.” She nearly dragged him into the living room, where his dad was talking to two people Sam had never seen before.

            A middle-aged man was seated on the couch, and beside him, a guy who was Sam’s age. Sam glanced him over quickly, trying not to appear too obvious. Brown hair that was maybe brown but maybe blond, short on the sides but longer on top so it just flopped over his forehead in a little curl. Dark amber eyes, high cheekbones, ski-jump nose. Sam had to stop looking before he started staring.

            “You must be Sam,” the man on the couch said, as Sam was nudged into the room by his mother. “Pleasure to meet you. I’m Randall.”

            “He’s a friend of Valerie’s husband. You remember, Valerie Winters?” Sam’s mother supplied, and Sam just nodded along. His mother had more friends than he did, and it wasn’t something he enjoyed considering often. Why was she so popular, anyways? “He was here to ask a favor of you.”

            “Oh, um, sure.” Sam looked between his mother and Randall, trying to keep his gaze off the younger guy who was possibly staring at him. Sam didn’t want to look long enough to check.

            “It’s so nice of you to accept,” Randall said, and Sam realized, not exactly unhappily, that his mother must have already signed him up for whatever it was that had to do with this guy with the very long eyelashes and pink lips. Sam _had_ to stop staring. When had he even started again? “My sister in law’s son is visiting my wife and I this month.” He indicated the guy beside him, and Sam decided that was as good as permission to once-over him again. The second glance took in the surprisingly strong arms, the big hands, the strength in such a slight-seeming frame. “And I was telling the Winters that he wasn’t getting much English practice, what with my wife and I at home all day. And they told me about your parents, and how they have a son his age. Maybe you could let him hang out with you, for practicing English?”

            “Oh, uh. Yeah. Totally. That’d be cool.” Sam wondered just how much fun there was to be had, when he spending his time packing up boxes to bring into his uncertain future, going on dates that felt sorrowfully numbered, generally being alone for the last month he had at home.

            “He’s from Venice, and he doesn’t speak any English.” Sam’s heart sank a little, at Randall’s words. So much for having someone to talk to, he thought, didn’t enjoy how the sharp disappointment highlighted his apparently dire need for that in his life.

            “None at all?” Sam asked; the guy took on a sheepish look, looking down.

            “He can understand quite well, but has a harder time with putting the words together himself,” Randall explained. “His name’s Calabrone.”

            “Cal.” The voice was low, hoarse. He glanced up shyly, offered a smile. Sam could feel it; even if Cal couldn’t say a word back, talking to him could never feel like being alone.

\--

“Who’s this?” Mikaela asked, with an amount of surprise that Sam probably deserved. He hadn’t exactly been social this summer; for him to make a new friend, they’d have to have opened a Friends for Hire store at the mall. Especially in the last few weeks, he hadn’t been feeling very sociable, so it was probably pretty surprising to see him with a new companion.

Cal was trailing along after Sam into the garage, offered Mikaela a shy smile. Maybe he was intimidated by her; Sam certainly had been, the first time he’d seen her, and every time he looked over, he saw Cal’s amber-eyed gaze flickering away.

            “This is Cal. His uncle knows my mom’s friend, and he’s visiting them to practice his English and stuff. He’s Italian.” Sam glanced over his shoulder, to see Cal poking around in the garage, just looking away from them again. Mikaela leaned away from her crutch to sit back against the hood of the car – old, and baby blue, and that was all Sam could readily identify – and looked over at Cal.

            “You talked to Bee at all?” she asked, her eyes kind. Sam didn’t want her to have to teach the lesson he knew she inevitably would: that you could love someone without being in love with them, that it was sad, that it was to know you were missing a piece and just going along hoping it was an edge piece, something unimportant to the whole picture.

            “Not really,” Sam shrugged a shoulder, as if not speaking to Bee at all could constitute a ‘not really,’ instead of a flat-out no. Bee hadn’t contacted _him_ either, he wanted to point out petulantly, but it was an unfair argument. Bumblebee was keeping quiet because he could see it was what Sam wanted. “You ready to go?” Sam asked instead, looking around for her truck.

            “Amy took the truck,” Mikaela explained its absence, “she needed to pick up some big plants at the nursery.”

            “Okay,” Sam peered into the window, confirming his suspicion. “Uh, it’s a stick shift,” he pointed out sheepishly, “you can’t drive, with your ankle,” he gave a pointless gesture towards her cast.

            “Ugh, I can’t believe I forgot,” Mikaela shook her head at her ankle, sighed. Impulsively, Sam looked over at Cal.

            “Can you drive stick?” he asked. It was a dumb question. Cal was from a city without cars, for God’s sake, but before Sam could correct himself, Cal nodded eagerly. His smile was brilliant as he darted forward to take the keys from Mikaela and open the backseat door for her. It was a chivalrous gesture and all, Sam noted bemusedly, but shot Cal in the foot a little, if he wanted to flirt with Mikaela; it left the passenger seat open for Sam to sit beside Cal, after all.

           

 _There goes one more day,_ Sam thought, as Mikaela waved goodbye before closing the front door of her house. They were nearing the day he would leave, moving to the Autobot’s new city for his own protection, the start of some vague new chapter in his life. He and Mikaela had never discussed it, what would happen between them when that day came, but – but they understood each other. Made for each other they weren’t, but they could share bittersweet smiles and know without speaking that they were in the dwindling dusk of their time together.

            Sam meandered down the sidewalk, Cal at his side, as the streetlights winked on overhead in the gradually darkening sky. “So,” Sam said, glancing over at Cal, “did you like Mikaela?”

            “You love her?” Cal asked, in his hoarse voice. Sam sighed, and when he looked over again to find Cal watching him, his heart fluttered a little. It was the way Cal was looking at him, like in this moment, Sam was the center of the universe.

            “She’s a great person,” Sam said, “she really is. And we really do connect, you know? We get each other.” Cal gave him an inquisitive look and a questioning little sound, just like the ‘what?” sound Sam was so used to hearing from Bee. “We’ve been dating since I was eighteen, and when I went to school, it was even long distance, and I just, I know her really well now. And I _like_ her, I know her completely and she’s so _good._ But-” Sam was almost afraid to go on. It felt final, in the gathering dusk, the stars coming out overhead and Cal’s eyes on him unfalteringly. “I think the person you’re supposed to be with… they should feel like home.”

            Cal nodded slowly, saying nothing. Sam couldn’t quite figure out what it meant. It was like Cal’s silence was saying something to him, like it was a language all his own, and Sam was only just learning how to speak it, its words still just a poetic mystery to his ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (big changes in chapter two! Mikaela doesn't have to be the toxic girlfriend to not be someone Sam wants to date! character development! Of mikaela and of the author who is no longer 16 and threatened by other girls!! support other girls!!!!!)


	3. Chapter 3

            Sam finally began packing. His mother had rolled her eyes at how he started just a week before moving to the city, but doing it any sooner had felt too premature. Sam was still here; he hadn’t wanted his surroundings to begin disappearing, not yet.

            On his second day of packing, Cal was sitting on the bed, watching Sam pack and listening to Sam’s chattering. Sam had no idea how much Cal was really understanding, but Cal’s eyes were bright with amusement, so he figured it was probably a decent amount.

            “-and my mom must think I’ve got like, a dragon’s hoard in here because she got enough boxes to pack an army in.” He reached a hand into the back of his desk drawer to finish clearing it out, and his fingers brushed against something. “And of course, my dad’s already got buckets of paint so he can convert this into his combination gym/home-theatre, because he thinks that’ll help motivate him to exercise more.” He curled his fingers around the item and brought it out; it was the communicator he’d been given, which made him pause.

            He hadn’t called in three weeks; partly because he’d been busy spending time with Mikaela and Cal, trying not to think about leaving home for somewhere so different this time, a city that felt more foreign than anywhere he’d ever been, a shift that felt permanent. But mostly – mostly it was because every time he thought about Bee, his heart twisted itself into knots. Bee, who suddenly felt a little like a stranger.

            Sam stared down at the cell-phone-like device in his hands. “Just a sec, I have to call someone.” Cal nodded, and then, tilting his head, pointed to the door with a questioning look. “No, you can stay, it’s cool. Thanks.” Cal gave a small smile; warmth pooled in his eyes, and Sam had a hard time looking away. He finally turned back to the phone, pressed the buttons until he’d connected to the only Autobot that seemed to care about having the call receptors turned on. With the other Autobots, it was like how some people – Sam’s dad in particular – just seemed incapable of hearing their phone, no matter how loud the ringtone was. The phone rang once, and even then, it was barely an entire ring.

            “Sam? Is something wrong?” Ratchet’s panicked voice came through immediately. As far as phone availability went, Ratchet was the only reliable one in the bunch. Ironic, for beings who could literally answer the phone in their own brains.

            “No, no, nothing. I just… I wanted to ask, y’know, how’s Bee?” He chanced a glance over at Cal, hoping he sounded nonchalant enough that Cal wouldn’t be intrigued enough to ask questions.

            “Just fine,” Ratchet said. “I’d let you talk to him, but he’s off with Ironhide right now, working.”

            “Oh, okay.” Sam’s shoulders slumped. “It wasn’t really important, anyways.”

            “I’d be more than happy to pass on a message, Sam.”

            “Just… tell him hi. And I miss him. That’s all.” Sam felt his face redden a little at the admission. But – he did. Bee was his best friend, and whenever anything happened, Sam found himself immediately looking to Bee for his reaction.

            “Of course, Sam.”      

            After he’d hung up, Sam slipped the device into his pocket, looked over at Cal. “Anyways…” There was no use pretending Cal hadn’t heard the conversation, after all. And Sam felt Bee’s absence like a missing limb, which may have been magnifying his feelings towards Cal, but – still. Cal was sweet and calming and Sam was going to miss him, too. “Speaking of missing. You’re going back home soon, huh?” Cal nodded solemnly, eyes on Sam as he scooted forward to sit on the edge of the bed. “I… I’m really gonna miss you. This has been a lot of fun, hanging out and all.”

            The sweet smile he got was his favourite, but it did make the words harder to get out. Maybe he was in the midst of a rebound for a loss that hadn’t even happened yet, but Sam kept finding himself looking at Cal for too long.  

            “I kinda… there’s something I really want to know… but, wait, are you getting all of this? Because I can talk slower or if I’m using words you don’t… well, I mean, I don’t use long words all the time, I’m not a walking dictionary…” he was babbling, he knew it, but he couldn’t stop himself. Cal was looking right at him, like he could see everything Sam was trying to say, and maybe like he already knew. That made it easier, somehow. “So are you getting this?” Sam asked weakly. Cal reached up to set a finger on Sam’s lips, and Sam felt a shiver go down his back. “So you understand.”

“Everything,” Cal murmured.

“Okay. Okay. Definitely good. Not like I doubted or anything, I just wanted to make sure you understand. I just, since you don’t know enough to talk like, at all, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t confusing you. But you’re great company anyways, seriously, I know we don’t _talk_ but I know you listen and I hardly know anything about you but… I’m really going to miss you.”

Cal understood. Cal understood what Sam wasn’t saying, because he leaned forward and pressed his lips to Sam’s.  

            They only had one more week left; it would still be filled with silence from Cal, but if they had this, Sam thought, leaning in to kiss Cal again, again – if they had this, Sam thought he could say everything he needed to. Cal knew he was leaving. He probably even knew he was standing in for someone who Sam missed terribly.

Still, Cal brought his hand to Sam’s cheek and kissed him again.

\--

            Sam spotted a stack of books under his desk, reached to pull them towards him. As much as he’d wanted to spend the afternoon of his third-to-last day kissing Cal, his mother’s shout from downstairs had reminded him he’d finished only a handful of boxes out of who knew how many. Cal was still sprawled across the bed, one hand dangling off the edge so his fingertips could trail up and down Sam’s arm. The touch was doing nothing to keep Sam on task but Sam wasn’t about to complain. It was sweet, how extremely relaxed Cal had become in the past few days, basking in Sam’s attention.

            “Textbooks,” Sam grumbled as he examined the stack, which was definitely going in the ‘to leave’ pile. “I hate how these pile up. These are just for electives! Astrology – way harder than you’d think – and linguistics – the teacher kept complaining about teaching babies sign language for some reason? And French-”

            Sam paused, unsure why the book was calling out to him. “French,” he mumbled, distracted as he stared at it for some kind of clue. He flicked through the pages until they all flopped towards the front, leaving him looking at the dictionary of words in the back.

 

_cajoler [v.] – to coax_

_calamité [n.f.] – misfortune_

_calandre [n.f.]- radiator grill_

_calculer [v.]- to compute_

_calendrier [n.m.]- calendar_

 

There was something tugging at his mind. The words themselves meant nothing to him, but they were trying to tell him something. Not the words. Just – the list. The list of them.

“Italian!” Sam blurted, jumping to his feet. He shoved the books aside jolting Cal’s hand away from him in his haste. “Be right back!” He raced stumblingly out of the room, nearly smacking his shoulder on the doorframe. A whimpering noise was the only response he got from Cal, but he ignored that and sprinted down the stairs. Hopefully, his mother wouldn’t be in her crying mood, and would be able to help. “Mom? Mom?” She was only a little weepy, standing in the kitchen and staring at a pot.

"When you were a baby, you liked to play with the pots and pans,” she told him mournfully.

"That's great mom, that's really great, but listen, where's that Italian textbook you tried to teach me Italian with?"

"Tried?" She planted her hands on her hips, narrowing her eyes at him. "Samuel James Witwicky, I would have taught you to be fluent in Italian if you hadn't been so uninterested! I-"

"Yes, Mom, yes, you're right, you were a great teacher and I should have paid attention- where is it?"

"The book?" She sniffled and looked down at the saucepan. "You were just so darn cute... you'd sit on the floor for hours and hit the pots with a spoon-"

"Yes, Mom, the book! Where is it?"

"Living room bookshelves, probably..." she sniffled again. "God, the racket you made. But it was just so darn cute..."

"Great. Thank you!" He bolted out of the kitchen before she could start crying again. Sam started tearing through the bookcase, trying to be methodical, going through the shelves as fast as he could. The textbook was on the third to last shelf, gathering dust. He pulled it from its slot and flipped through it rapidly. The glossary was on the last few pages, and told him just what he'd thought it might.

            It might mean nothing, he thought, staring down at the page. It didn’t prove anything.

            Sam dashed back upstairs, book in hand, slamming back into his room. Cal jerked in surprise, tumbling from the bed.

“I’m sorry, are you okay?” Sam crawled awkwardly across the bed, book still in hand. Cal sat up, resting his chin on the bedspread, gaze on the book. “Yeah, the book! This is gonna sound crazy, I’m probably wrong, but, look!” He flipped the pages to the ‘C’ section, jabbed his finger down at a word. “Your name suddenly sounded familiar to me, and I was right! It means-” The rest of his theory caught up with him, just as he saw Cal’s eyes widen. “It means –” Sam stammered.

 

_calabrone [n.m.]: bumblebee._

 

 

“You… it…. It means Bumblebee.”

            It couldn’t be a coincidence. It was deliberate, it had to be, and to be deliberate, it had to be deception. Lies, from the amber-eyed boy in his room. Sam raised his gaze to find him; Cal had scooted back against one of the boxes, eyes big, looking for all the world like he was about to be under gunpowder. Was he trying to find out about the Autobots? Why bother with the games? It didn’t add up. Sam tried to puzzle it out, but kept hitting dead ends, all while staring at Cal. A guy who found out about the Autobots and… what, tried to get information out of Sam by being his friend? And for what, to give it to who, the Decepticons? Why be so obvious, then? Why call himself Bee’s name if Sam wasn’t supposed to ever find out? Why would he want Sam to realize something was going on?

            Sam was wrong. An entirely new storm of lies was growing on the horizon behind him, he hadn’t seen it coming and was suddenly roaring towards him. He wasn’t finding out that his companion was some kind of spy. That would have been bad, would have hurt, would have made Sam feel used and pathetic, but he could have dealt with that. That would have been so much easier.

            “You’re –” Sam whispered. He could still feel those hands on him, those lips, the sweetest touch he’d ever felt, but this… this made it hurt, this made everything taste bitter. This undid it all, everything falling away around them, lies dissolving into the silence. The tortured look on the sweetest face Sam had ever seen sealed it, the tear-filled amber eyes made it a bond they couldn’t break if they tried, but it couldn’t be, because Sam didn’t want to be united in knowing the truth, because Sam didn’t want to know at all, because he was just so _real._

            “Bee?”


	4. Chapter 4

            The breakup felt like the end of an era. It was the changing of the guard in slow motion, resigning from being each other’s most important person, handing the duty over to someone yet unnamed and unfound. _Take care of her,_ Sam wanted to ask of her future partner, the man who wasn’t him.

            “I’m sorry,” Sam said softly. Part of him wished he hadn’t done this here, in the garage where she was so quintessentially herself. This was his Mikaela: her long hair pinned in a bun, her hands flecked with grease, a wrench in her back pocket, and he was leaving her. Sam had wished so many times to feel at home with her, gazed over at her and could only think _why couldn’t it be her?_ “You’re amazing,” he said, wished he had the words to explain to her how deeply he loved her despite leaving. “You’re such an amazing person, Mikaela, and I, I just feel lucky that I even got to be with you and get to know you. I really…” The words were stuck back in his memory of saying them for the first time, of looking over at her under the stars and whispering them. “I really did love you.”

            “I know, Sam.” Mikaela smiled, and her eyes were like sparkling water; Sam would always remember them clearly, he knew it, before and after they looked at him with sadness. “I loved you too. I just don’t think we’re meant for each other.” She blew out a slow breath, faraway look in her eyes as she gazed down into the open hood of the car she leaned against, like maybe she was thinking about how things fit together, how they made incredible things happen by being together in the exact right way. “I know we were important to each other, and breaking up won’t change who you were at that time in my life.” She smiled a little, a lightness slowly returning to them. “That’s also a fancy way of saying we should stay friends.”

            Sam had never had a breakup like this, where he left feeling free in this way – not of her, but of the misalignment, of now being in his proper place in her life. And if it wasn’t her, if she wasn’t the person waiting for him at the end of his long journey to find them, if someone as richly compelling and loving as Mikaela couldn’t be the one waiting for Sam, Sam couldn’t wait to see what _his_ person was like.

            Sam walked home slowly, kicking aimlessly at fallen leaves, hands in his jacket pockets. He wondered how long it would take, before he felt like she was missing whenever he looked over and didn’t see her there. When he did look towards the street at the sound of tires, though, he did see someone who had been missing. The yellow Camaro sat in the street, one door open in invitation, as if Bee really had been gone for a month and not actually right beside Sam all along. Sam’s lightened mood plummeted.

            “I don’t think so.” He picked up his pace, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets. “I’m not talking to you.”

            An engine rev, almost like a whimper.

            “I can’t believe I didn’t see right through it,” Sam grumbled. He was talking to himself; maybe people would assume he had Bluetooth earphones in. “Random boy shows up, says he’s Italian but never speaks a word of Italian, no accent, never even talks to me, can drive a car even though he’s from a city with no cars, and you seriously couldn’t come up with a better name? How about _any_ name, at all?!”

            The shouting earned him a confused look from a woman working in her garden, and she hid behind the picket fence as he walked by, ineffectually. Sam hurried past her, unable to think of any explanation to ease her fears. Maybe she’d think he was just a roving lunatic and didn’t live around here.

            “I can’t believe you even got Ratchet in on it. That’s who Randall was, wasn’t it? You guys can all do it, the, the hologram thing? Or whatever that human form was? No one ever mentioned it to _me,_ after all. You guys don’t tell me anything. And seriously, Randall? That sounds the _same_ as Ratchet! You guys are terrible with sneaky names! And it was you the whole time! You came with me when I went out with Mikaela, even!”

            He was about to say it: _you could have hurt her again, I shouldn’t have let you close to her._ But it stopped him, the nagging thought that he didn’t understand everything yet, that maybe he just – wasn’t ready to. He was just so _angry,_ hated how Bee had forced the emotion onto him by his increasingly infuriating actions, how things just kept getting worse. Sam had wanted to talk to someone about it, had even planned to talk to Mikaela, but had been unable to heap more emotions on her than he already had.

            “And you _lied_ to me!” Sam’s voice broke on the word. It was the worst part, the _lies,_ and he hated remembering any of it, seeing himself as so thoroughly fooled. “Why’d you do it? Did you not – what, trust me? Wanted to spy on me?”

            A loud rev from Bumblebee, probably in protest.

            “Yeah, well, now I don’t trust you either.”

            Sam stalked along in silence until he reached his house. Ratchet, car-form, was sitting in his driveway, engine humming quietly. The boxes with Sam’s belongings were already packed into the ambulance that was Ratchet, and he was just waiting for Sam to finish up his goodbyes. He’d already said goodbye to his parents, and Mikaela was at the end of his goodbyes list. Sam hadn’t wanted to face his parents after that, and the decision of whether or not to tell them about the breakup.

            “You,” Sam huffed, storming up to the ambulance. “Have so much explaining to do.” It had been hard to reign in his fury in front of his parents and now that they were without an audience, he was ready to stop trying.

            “Sam, we really must leave,” Ratchet said, placating and factual, “the others are expecting us to be en route already. It is a long drive.”

            “It can wait two seconds.”

            Bumblebee stayed in the street, darting forward and then backwards, the auto equivalent of pacing. The engine revs were short, quick bursts, like the very sound of anxiety.

            “What were you guys thinking, sending Bee’s hologram or whatever to follow me around? Seriously? You could have at least told me it was him! Or that you guys could even _do_ that.”

            “No, Sam,” Ratchet’s voice was soothing, albeit ineffectually. “It was not security. You’ll have to talk to Bumblebee about the reason.”

            “Yeah. Conveniently, he can’t talk.”

            “I set him up with temporary cables this morning. He can get a couple days out of them. Now, may we leave?”

            “Fine.” Sam took one step towards the Camaro, and the door was flung open, desperately inviting. Sam sighed, climbed in.

            It felt different than when he’d left for college, watching the house disappear from the rearview mirror. Sam watched his familiar street leave them, then his neighborhood, all in silence. He couldn’t help but wonder where he would be going now if he hadn’t ever met the Autobots, if his life had proceeded normally, if he was a recent college graduate who hadn’t become entrenched in an alien war, if the threats to his safety weren’t so significant and his involvement so pivotal that he didn’t have to move to an Earthbound alien city.

            He tried, in vain, to imagine never having met Bumblebee.

\--

            The first day of driving had passed in complete silence. Sam had tried a few times to ask Bee why he’d decided to play holo-exchange-student, not even touching upon the whole kissing thing – Sam definitely wasn’t ready to hear about that – and all he’d gotten was a brief explanation of “security,” even though Ratchet had sworn up and down that it was entirely Bee’s doing and had zero relation to security.          

            The second day, though, during a stop at a deserted gas station, Sam had gotten out of the car to walk around, and had been surprised to see Bee’s human hologram hesitantly following him up onto the porch of the shop. The Camaro stayed in place in the parking lot, no actual need for fuel. Sam frowned, giving Bee a quick glance. There was a brief wave of familiarity, a flash of feeling less alone in the wake of betrayal, until his mind caught up and reminded him that this was the person who had done it to him.

            “Okay. You want to talk?” Sam asked. Bee nodded, leaning against the porch railing, still several paces away from Sam like he was afraid to get too close. The look of fear on his face made Sam’s heart twist and pitch. “Don’t look like that. I just want to know why.”

            Before Bee could answer, Sam’s cell phone rang.

            “Better get that,” Bee offered weakly.

            “Wasn’t planning on it.” Sam glowered. The fact that Bee looked even more picture-perfect than before wasn’t helping Sam any. He had such a sweet face; Sam wondered briefly how the hologram image was even chosen.

            “It’s Mikaela.” Bee recognized the ringtone, of course. Sam sighed and picked it up.

            “Just checking in,” Mikaela said when he answered, “you are, after all, my favorite ex-boyfriend.”

            “God, that’s weird to hear. Not the favorite part, of course I’m your favorite, the other part.”

            “Yeah,” Mikaela exhaled the word. “I miss you. Are you okay out there? You seemed kind of, y’know, upset after your friend left, and having to move away right after…”

            “He… it’s a long story. He didn’t exactly leave on great terms.”

            “Oh, Sam.” He knew the look that would be on her face; pitying, heart hurting for him.

            “It’s fine. It’s not like I’ll see him again, right?” he was maybe being a little too mean to Bee, he knew it, he just felt like his hurt had so much momentum it was hard to stop. “Anyways… we have to get driving again, but I’ll tell you when we’re there?”

            “I’d love to see pictures of how the city turned out,” she said. It had been a giant undertaking, starting years ago; it was weird, to think of a project started during their relationship and finishing after it, as well as all the unseen conclusions in her life. They’d stay in touch, but would he know the little things? How her pet frog would take to the companion she hadn’t gotten him yet, whether she eventually lifted her ban on white leather seats in cars, if she’d ever stop nearly burning the handles of wooden spoons by leaving them in pots on the stove.

            When Sam hung up, he turned to Bee; the look on Bee’s face was so – so expressive, it made Sam wonder what he’d been missing all this time, when Bee stayed in car form because he had to, not even in Bot form. “Look, Bee, about Mikaela –”

            “No!” Bee’s sudden lash of anger made Sam fall speechless. “I’m sorry I hurt her, Sam, I really am – and I’m so, so sorry I hurt you by hurting her, and you’re right, I was out of line, I know that, but you should have seen what it was doing to you!”

            “What it was doing?”

            “You were so _sad,_ Sam! Like, like you were settling and you _knew_ it. And you would never talk about it! Why wouldn’t you just leave each other? Why keep making yourself feel like it was your fault for not being good together? You always _blamed_ yourself!” His raised voice was clearly wearing on the temporary cables – or whatever the equivalent was, in his current form – as his voice went from grating to hoarse, so broken up that Sam was sure it was painful for Bee. Were there really that many times, for Bee to be so upset by this?

            There were, though. Sam’s relationship as viewed by a third party – had it hurt, to watch? Sam had certainly spent the beginning trying to form himself into someone who wouldn’t fail out of the relationship, spent the middle beating himself up over his inability to do so. It was only now, at the sunset of their relationship, that Sam had accepted it: nothing he did would make things work.

            “You can’t think you deserve that, Sam! You can’t stay with her, look what it’s been doing to you! And you never understood what it did to _me!”_ At his last words, his voice cracked in a sob, and he brought a hand to his throat. His eyes were sad and reluctant, and the sight of his pure misery tore Sam apart. Sam knew he had to find a reply, so he grabbed at the most prominent and hoped he wouldn’t regret it.

            “It didn’t have anything to do with you,” he said. Bee lifted his head to look at Sam, eyes welled with tears, and so _betrayed –_ like Sam hadn’t understood him at all, and it hurt Bee so deeply to realize that. Before Sam could say anything, Bee vanished. Sam blinked in the aftermath; he’d never seen Bee just disappear before.

            The scream of tires against pavement came from the parking lot, and the Camaro roared off down the road, spinning up dust. Sam rubbed his hands over his face, swearing under his breath.

            “I assume you need a ride?” Ratchet drove up in front of the shop and a door popped open. “I’m afraid the boxes take up the room in back, so you won’t be able to pretend to be a patient.”

            “Very funny.” Sam climbed in, the door closing behind him. With it shut, he couldn’t even hear the distant howl of the Camaro engine. Ratchet let him sit in silence for a mile, as Sam watched the yellow car far ahead of them.

            “May I ask what happened?” Ratchet asked, voice placid.

            “Well…” Sam shifted, leaning against the stack of boxes between the driver’s and passenger seat. “I’m not super sure, I guess. I… well, I definitely said something I shouldn’t have.”

“Very descriptive.” Sam wasn’t sure whether the Autobots had always used sarcasm, or if it was one of those things they’d just learned from the humans. At the very least, Ratchet’s fondness for it had been on an incline since showing up on the planet.

“I mean… come on, in my defense, it was insane to find out that the guy I’d been hanging out with every day for a month was someone I already knew in disguise! I felt lied to – I _was_ lied to! I suddenly find out I’ve been making out with my _car_ and I’m supposed to – woah!” Ratchet had braked suddenly, and Sam flew forward before being all-but guillotined by his seatbelt. “Some warning would be nice!”  

            “I’m sorry, Sam.” Ratchet picked up speed again, and Sam hoped the driving would stay smooth. Sam nudged aside boxes so he could see out the windshield better; the visibility would have been pretty unsafe if he’d been piloting the car himself, and he wondered how he would explain it if they were pulled over. Sorry, officer, I didn’t think I needed to see out of the other half of the windshield. Sam looked ahead, and was just able to catch sight of sunlight glinting off the yellow car, far ahead. In the dead silence, he could just barely hear the screaming engine. “Okay, he’s pissed.”

            “I would suggest,” Ratchet finally offered, “That you talk to Bumblebee about his intentions some more. I think I misunderstood.”

            “You misunderstood him? What’s not to understand?”

            “That’s a question for him, not me.”

            “Are you sure? He wouldn’t tell me. I mean, maybe he was going to, but then Mikaela called, and then he flew off the handle.”

            “She called you? And what happened after that?”

            “Bee started yelling at me about how my relationship had been bad for me all along.” Sam could still see the hurt look, hear the pained voice. “He said it was hard for him, too.” The image of Bee in tears refused to leave him. He hadn’t known the Autobots could cry, but then again, Bee had been in human form. Maybe that had something to do with it. “And I said it had nothing to do with him. Which was probably not the best thing I could have said.”

            “You regret it?”

            “Yeah. I mean… what if he really was just looking out for me?” Part of Sam was angry because _he_ was the one who had rights to be upset. He’d been lied to and deceived, Bee had hurt his girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. _Sam_ was the one who had been wronged. But Bee – he looked so heartbroken. Like he was at the end of his rope, like there was a lot Sam had been missing.

            “Sam,” Ratchet interrupted softly. “Let me assure you, it was not a lack of trust that drove Bumblebee to come to you the way he did. Whatever it was, it was not mistrust. I can promise you that.”

            Sam drew in a breath, closing his eyes briefly. “Okay, well. I guess that makes everything else make sense too. Maybe he was trying to make her leave me, with all that stuff he did before? But when she didn’t, he showed up as a guy to get me away from her? Do you think he could do that hormone reading thing that you guys can do?”

            “Doubtlessly.”

            “Well maybe he could tell that if he showed up as a guy, I’d be, y’know. Susceptible.” Sam had never told Bee, after all. Or much of anyone. It was a combination of taking the path of least resistance, and never seeking out a reason to do otherwise. He liked girls and he liked guys, and then Mikaela showed up, and Sam loved her. He’d never seen a reason to go around advertising that if someone like Cal had appeared first, things could have gone that way instead.

            “Makes sense,” Sam said, mostly to himself. “Doesn’t really make it okay, but at least it makes sense. Y’know… mostly.”

            It didn’t answer for the look on Bee’s face. It didn’t tell Sam why Bee was so hurt, watching his failing relationship from the outside. It didn’t give Sam the Rosetta stone to Bee’s hurt feelings. Maybe that meant it wasn’t the answer at all.

            The Camaro sped ahead of them until it was entirely out of sight, vanishing into the setting sun.


	5. Chapter 5

 

Sam’s life had become unrecognizable to him ever since the night his car stole itself and drove away from his house without him. After the fiasco that had been his first attempt at going to college, Sam had faced his new reality: he would never be able to extricate his life from the Autobots’ existence on Earth. He would always have their symbols in his mind, would always have a looming threat out there in the galaxy, that something he couldn’t fight or even see coming might come for him because of it. There were inextractable things in his mind; they were his chains to this abnormal life.

            When he’d realized, though, his first thought had been that, well, a life beside Bee wasn’t a bad life at all, and had been abruptly at peace.

            Sam did feel safer, being so near the Autobots. After the catastrophe with the Allspark shard – Sam’s term, the Autobots called it an _incident,_ but in Sam’s book, an incident was spilling a tray of food or accidentally elbowing someone in the face, not the near-ending-of-the-world they’d all experienced – Sam had felt on edge, tensely waiting for the next threat. Knowing they were all nearby allowed the fear encasing his heart to unclench a little.

            He’d been in the city for a week already; it was a military project, technically, housing personnel who worked at the nearby base, and serving as a prototype for alternative building material that never gained popularity. Sam assumed that was because of its unappealing steel-like appearance, because it did tend to make things feel a little cold. It was a pretty well-functioning city, though, and even had a small university.

Sam had started taking a few classes there, mostly so he could have an excuse ready to hand. He couldn’t exactly come out and say “oh, I’m sort of avoiding my own guardian/best friend,” whenever he was asked why he kept disappearing. “Studying,” was a much better explanation. The only person it didn’t work on was his mother, who’d already called to ask how the city was working out for him and also apologize for apparently being Bumblebee’s partner in crime.

“Really, honey, like Valerie would have Italian friends she’d never mentioned to be before,” she’d scoffed, when he’d asked why they’d let her in on it. “He had to tell me, I’m too sharp! But – he meant well honey. Ratchet said Bee just missed you and knew you wouldn’t see him if you knew it was him.”

“And you didn’t see anything problematic with that?” Sam had spluttered, and his mother had sighed.

“His heart was in the right place,” she’d said, and a week later, her words were making Sam consider stopping his Avoid Bee plan. Avoiding him in the beginning hadn’t been easy – it had taken a lot of hiding, door locking, awkward silences – but once Bee had gotten the point, it had been more than easy. Sam knew Bee had never gone far, remaining close enough to watch over him, but he hadn’t so much as seen Bee in a week.

Late in the evening on his tenth day in the city, Sam stepped outside the apartment building that was his new home, looking up and down the street for Bumblebee. Sam didn’t see him, not as an Autobot, Camaro, or hot not-actually-human-or-Italian guy.

            “Where are you Bee?” Sam mumbled under his breath, continuing to scan for him. Military personnel hurried about – always in a hurry, always going important places – and cars passed, but no flash of yellow. He stood there for a few minutes, before the Camaro purred up in front of him. Sam had been hoping for a form that was easier to drag around, but he’d take what he was given.

            “Alright,” Sam slid into the driver’s seat, “we’re going to see Ratchet.” The radio flicked on, treating him to a short burst of woeful music.

            “Why, why, why do you do this to me…”

            “Because you need at least a temporary fix on your voice mod.” Sam steered the car towards the medical center, which was nice of Bee to allow him to do. He’d been on his best behavior for a while, and Sam hadn’t seen him as a Bot since arriving; it felt impersonal, and Sam itched to find some sort of solution to everything. “So, we’re going to ask Ratchet.” Bee replayed the same song. “Because, we really need to talk.” Dead silence. “Don’t give me that.”

            Sam pulled up to the Autobot entrance of the medical center. Most of the new construction in the city had been to serve Autobots; with so many of them on Earth and working with the military, it had only made sense. Sam popped the door open, stepped out. “C’mon, let’s go.” A whiny engine rev sounded as Sam started towards the building, and before long, Sam heard the footsteps that told him Bee was stalking along behind, the soft whir of mechanics welcome after seeing Bee only in his most impersonal form.

            The rooms of the med center all had impossibly high ceilings, built like warehouses; it wasn’t fully set up yet unopened crates stacked along several walls. They found Ratchet setting up what looked like an operating room.

            “Hello,” Ratchet looked between them, setting down the box in his hands. “What brings you here?” _Together,_ was the implied question, since that had become a rare sight.

            “His voice mod,” Sam tilted his head towards Bee, who made a whining noise. “Can’t you do one of your temporary fixes again?”

            “I can try.” Ratchet looked out at the larger room thoughtfully, scanning the shelving along the wall. “I think I’ve already unpacked most of the tools needed. Sit,” he pointed to a metal platform in the middle of the room, and Bee shuffled over, optics downcast. Ratchet looked down at Sam. “This could take several hours, Sam.”

            There was a loud bang that reverberated through an adjoining room, and Ironhide appeared in the doorway. “That’s the last of the tools, Dr. Ratchet,” Ironhide snapped a sarcastic salute at Ratchet. “May I leave?”

            “Yes Ironhide.” Ratchet shook his head in exasperation. “You’ve been a great help.”

            “Fantastic. Sam, you doing anything right now?” Ironhide asked. Sam shrugged, looked up at Ratchet.

            “You probably won’t want to watch,” Ratchet offered. “It’s a delicate and… invasive procedure.” Sam grimaced. He was pretty sure that meant Bee’s throat would be split open and that the dark liquid that seemed to serve as lubricant if not blood would be everywhere. Sam looked back to Ironhide; his first memory of the Autobots resurfaced, with the glowing cannons hidden in Ironhide’s arms pointed at Sam’s face. Ironhide had turned out to be more of a showman than a violent lunatic, although sometimes Sam wondered if he’d really gotten the better end of that deal.

            “Guess I’m not doing anything.”

            “Great!” Ironhide whirred back into a pickup truck, the passenger side door springing open. “I don’t want to go clubbing alone.”

            “Clubbing? Are you insane?”

            “C’mon, it’s nearly ten, it’s an hour drive to the city! You’re wasting moonlight, Sam!” Sam sighed, cast a last glance up at Bee, who was watching him silently.

            “You. Come find me later. Please?”

            Bee nodded yes, radio answering. “I promise you, I promise you.”

\--

            The club was on the top floor of a casino, glass windows all around; moonlight filtered in, competing with the strobe lighting and losing. Tables were littered alongside the windows, people crowded into the center of the room, music with a strong baseline nearly deafening Sam. He watched all the people, feeling overcome with shyness as he watched rotating hips and roaming hands, a blush creeping up the back of his neck that was either from embarrassment at watching the dancing or wanting to try it himself.

            Ironhide sauntered up to the table, pressing a glass into Sam’s hand that smelled strongly of whiskey. As Sam was fast suspecting to be the norm, Ironhide’s human hologram form was beautiful. He had black hair slicked back, a clean-shaven jaw with sharp cheekbones, crystal blue eyes; he was suave in a very James Bond-esque way, polished and handsome and smooth.

            “See her?” he nodded discreetly towards a blonde woman, “I danced with her three times.”

            “Mmm. Congrats.” Sam rolled his eyes. “I thought you were in love with that redhead two minuets ago?”

            “I said I thought she was cute. That’s a long way from loving her.” Ironhide explained it as if Sam was the one from another planet. “Speaking of loving…”

            “Great,” Sam groaned, as Ironhide drummed his fingertips on the glass tabletop and arched a sleek eyebrow.

            “Heard about Bee’s little holo-adventure with you.”

            “Oh, is that what we’re calling it now? I think of it has a holo-deception.” Sam glowered down at the tabletop. Ironhide’s martini glass sat there abandoned; someone had probably bought him the drink the moment he walked in the door. Ironhide had informed Sam he preferred single-malt scotch; Sam hadn’t bothered to ask just when Ironhide had developed a taste for human alcohol, or found the time to become a snob about it.

            He’d probably acquired his suddenly-extensive knowledge about it on the internet, something Sam was beginning to regret the Bots having access to. It had given Ratchet mind-numbingly dull medical information that he loved to describe to Sam until Sam either wanted to scream or pass out from the gruesome descriptions. It had introduced Skids to the new love of his life, poker, and Sam wasn’t faring well as his opponent. Skids’ twin Mudflap had learned way, way too many languages, downloading databases in a far too haphazard way, leaving Sam frequently questioning what the hell he was saying. Sideswipe had taken an obsessive liking to Earth literature, and was seldom seen away from his books and online research about them in his free time. Even Optimus had fallen victim to the world wide web- he knew more than anyone alive about Earth's elements, reciting them and their properties until Sam made a hasty excuse to leave, at that very moment. And Bumblebee, apparently, had been learning seduction techniques.

            “Deception, huh? I assume you broke up with, uh… Caly…?”

            “Calabrone. I don’t know why he didn’t really change his name. Maybe he was going to claim that all along, he was going to tell me, and was trying _not_ to be deceptive. Anyways, we weren’t dating, not exactly.”

            Sam couldn’t quite bring himself to be more final than that, to say that yes, he was through with trusting Bee. Sure, he couldn’t end something that had never technically started, but maybe something had, and Sam couldn’t end that, either. “It wasn’t much of anything.” Liar, his thoughts hissed at him, and he couldn’t really say whose voice it was in.

            “So why’d he do it?”

            “Dunno.”

            “Don’t think he’s madly in love with you?” Ironhide smirked to show he was kidding. “Maybe you have a secret Bee-attracting hormone.”

            “Are you crazy? I don’t know why, maybe he just wanted to go after Mikaela again.” It was far from being on Sam’s list of theories, though.

            “Because he’s totally the type to commit homicide,” Ironhide snorted with laughter. “I’m not sure he even knows how.”

            “I swear he tried to! He broke her ankle, on purpose!”

            “He probably didn’t think it would be that bad,” Ironhide said, and held up his hands when Sam glared at him. “Hey, I’m not saying it was cool of him to do. Just that it was subtle. If I hated someone, I’d have done a lot worse! Like, high-speed driving, alongside a cliff, with no door locks –”

            “Yeah, well, that’s you, not him. It was _weird_ for him to do something to, y’know.” Something to hurt Sam.

            “Well, wasn’t dragging the whole thing on depressing you? She wasn’t making you that happy.”

            “She wasn’t making me _un_ happy. How do you know all of this?” Sam demanded, but Ironhide wasn’t one to be intimidated.

            “Well, for starters, I stalk you,” he deadpanned. “And everyone talks. So why’d you stay together?”

            “Why wouldn’t I? We _liked_ each other. We just weren’t right for each other.” He shrugged, glanced over Ironhide’s shoulder. “That woman’s looking at you.”

            “They all do. Why put up with it for years? Why didn’t either of you want to find the _right_ person in that time?”

            “Because,” Sam frowned, “we were close. It was familiar. We kept thinking that maybe it would work.”

            “Oh. Alright then.” Ironhide had spotted some other woman to dance with, attention drifting, maybe had been for some time. “See you in a bit, okay?”

            “Uh-huh,” Sam mumbled, but Ironhide had already sidled up to the svelte blonde across the room, enticing smile in place.

            After an hour and a half, Sam was getting tired of watching Ironhide jump between dance partners and lingering on the sidelines. Ironhide was a master of the hologram trick, too; he changed from the suave brunette to a bleached blonde surfer boy to a muscled redhead. The hologram forms were all completely perfect, and if stared at too long, were almost inhuman. Sam couldn’t believe he’d managed to miss that about Bee for the month he was around. Maybe Bee’s hologram was different, more realistic? He was their spy, after all, maybe he had to be more believable.

            Currently, Ironhide was trying to be a seductive woman, and from the looks of it, had been doing quite well so far.

            “Hey there,” Ironhide purred at him, sashaying over. He was currently a blue-eyed brunette that bore too close a resemblance to Mikaela not to make Sam’s heart lurch.

            “Can’t you pick a body and stick with it? It’s creepy,” Sam said, and Ironhide just laughed, a sweet, feminine giggle that seriously disturbed Sam.

            “But it’s so fun dancing with a girl and then stealing her next dance partner.”

            “Devious.”

            “I love mind games! Hey, let’s play one right now,” Ironhide flicked his long hair over his shoulder, smiling sweetly, as Sam felt a hand on his shoulder. He ignored it; he knew who it was.

            Bee’s hand stayed where it was, even as Ironhide reached out a hand to caress Sam’s cheek. Although Ironhide didn’t look over Sam’s shoulder, Sam knew Ironhide wanted to irritate a reaction out of his new suitor. Did Ironhide know it was Bee? Bee’s hands dropped to Sam’s waist, tugging him back and closer. Sam gasped out a little breath, head tilting back against Bee’s shoulder.

            “What’re you doing?” he whispered, barely audible under the deafening music, but Bee just tightened his hold, aware there wasn’t even a shadow of a protest in Sam’s voice. _We can and we will,_ his silence seemed to murmur in Sam’s ear. Sam couldn’t form a response.

            He’d missed it, the way Bee’s body felt against his. After abruptly losing Cal, Sam had still been able to feel Cal’s arms around him, a vivid and lonely feeling.

            Ironhide seemed to interpret this as competition; there was no recognition on his face when he glanced at Bee, before leaning forward and kissing Sam. Sam couldn’t focus on Ironhide, because Bee was wrapping his arms more fully around Sam from behind, nuzzling his nose against Sam’s neck.

            Before Sam could figure out who to shove off and how to do so before he passed out from the thrill, both released him. Sam could feel both challenging him like it was a competition to see who he chose, Bee quiet and intense, Ironhide thinking it was a game with a stranger.

            Sam turned, pressed Bee into the glass wall. Bee gave a shocked, delighted little moan when Sam crushed his lips to Bee’s, clutching desperately at Sam and kissing him hungrily. Sam didn’t want to think about how they shouldn’t be doing this, about how Bee had lied, how he should still be angry. If he didn’t think about it, he could pretend none of it had ever happened. He could have Bee back, in the way he’d had Bee when Sam didn’t know it was him.

            Sam pulled back, tilted his forehead to Bee’s. “Listen, why’d you do it all?” he asked, pleading, but Bee shook his head, pointing helplessly to his throat. “Didn’t work?” Bee shook his head no, leaned in to kiss Sam again. Sam reached to thread his fingers into Bee’s hair, thoughts blurring when Bee’s leg slid up between Sam’s, the movement making Sam moan and press in closer against Bee.

            “I just don’t understand,” Sam repeated, desperate in so many ways. Bee nudged up with his hips, and Sam felt Bee’s erection pressed against his though, making his breath catch. Forget Ironhide, Bee was definitely the best at the holograms, so realistic Sam almost forgot he wasn’t real. “Why? What did you want?”

            Bee pulled back from kissing Sam, and he touched Sam’s cheek with his fingertips, amber eyes bright and sad.

            “You,” he rasped.

            Suddenly, Sam felt fingers curl over his collar, and he was whipped away before Bee could say anything more. Sam stumbled backwards, barely catching a glance at Bee, who stood motionless, looking utterly lost.

            “What the hell was that for?” Sam snapped at Ironhide, who continued to drag him away.

            “Bad idea,” Ironhide said shortly, as Sam stumbled on his backwards steps.

            “Taking me away? Yeah, I’d say so!” He tried to turn around, but Ironhide didn’t release him, just towed him through the crowd of people, past the entrance, and into the elevator. Once the doors slid shut and the thrum of music quieted, Ironhide’s image flickered, and he switched back to what seemed to be his default hologram, the suave man with the blue eyes.

            “It’s for the best,” Ironhide said, “I’d have done it sooner if I’d realized it was Bumblebee. I hadn’t seen his holo form before.” Ironhide slouched back against the wall of the elevator. Sam didn’t lift his glare, and Ironhide heaved a sigh. “Trust me. You have to know what you’re getting yourself into before you decide. Okay?”

            “Getting myself into? What are you talking about? I’m just –” Sam waved a hand vaguely. Ironhide just looked at him.

            “Just don’t get in over your head. It’s… it’s real easy to get into trouble here.”

            “Here?” Sam repeated. Ironhide turned his gaze from Sam to the numbers at the top of the elevator, watching them light up one by one.

            “With Bumblebee. You should just watch out before you get yourself into something you can’t handle.”

            “It was your fault anyways,” Sam huffed. It seemed obvious now; Ironhide had looked like Mikaela, hadn’t he? It was like Bee lost all his sense when she was around Sam, and this was no doubt the result. And Sam – Sam had maybe done what Ironhide had cautioned him against, getting in over his head with no idea where he was going. He’d wanted to _forget,_ to kiss Bee again like nothing had ever happened.

            “What do I need to know?” Sam pressed, as the elevator dinged at the lobby and he followed Ironhide out. Ironhide just shook his head, leading the way outside. The pickup truck waited, driverless, at the curb. The valet was looking around in puzzlement, like he couldn’t figure out where the driver could have gotten to so quickly.

            “Get in,” was Ironhide’s only answer. Sam opened the heavy passenger door and slid into the cool leather interior. The silence made his head pound, after all the loud music. He closed his eyes as Ironhide drove back to the street, and when he opened them again, Ironhide’s holo had vanished again.

            Ironhide apparently had no sense of direction, because his first move was to drive in the wrong direction. He decided he had to pull a U-turn, punctuated by curses when the other drivers didn’t allow for it, and the flow of traffic forced him to keep going down the block.

            “No GPS system?” Sam asked innocently, receiving a torrent of curses. “Are you really just good looks and no brains?”

            Ironhide growled. “While I won’t deny that I’m beautiful –”

            “Because your holo program is top-notch.”

            “Shut up, I made that thing top-notch, and you mark my words, Sam, I look perfect no matter what program I use.”

            “Whenever any of you guys are holograms, you look perfect!”  

“I don’t expect you to know this, but I’m actually gorgeous by Autobot standards, too. And it’s not my fault there are so many stupid one-way streets!” He finally managed to U-turn and direct them past the building they’d recently left.

            When Sam looked, he saw Bee, staring down at the sidewalk by the valet stand. Bee looked like a normal human just then, a sad and abandoned one; he didn’t look perfect.  


	6. Chapter 6

            “Sam, we are centuries older than you. Do you think you’re the first one to ask if this is possible? Believe me, if it was, I would have done it years and years ago.”

            “Can’t you at least-”

            “There is simply nothing left to try,” Ratchet finished, with perhaps a little more dramatic flair than was strictly necessary. “I’m afraid Ironhide is untameable.”

            “Can’t you at least, like… block the Mikaela lookalike on his holo program? For my own mental health?”

            “We’re not computers, Sam,” Ratchet gave another dramatic optic roll. “I could no sooner do that than program you to ask fewer dumb questions. Are all Organics this vengeful?”

            “I think it’s just me.” There was a loud shattering noise from outside, the large-scale breaking of glass.

            “I said nothing!” a voice bellowed, followed by the sound of metal crunching and tires screaming. “You little –”

            “Or maybe it’s not?” Sam barely had time to look around before Ratchet snatched him up and ran outside. There was glass in the parking lot behind the med center, but Sam’s attention was immediately drawn to the black pickup truck – sans windshield – roaring over it in pursuit of the Camaro, which slid sideways away. Skid marks marred the pavement, in wild circles and short, harsh lines.

            The military personnel – the sight of them usually made Sam feel safer – dove off the sidewalk to avoid the sliding car. The audience dashed backwards, but remained in sight, peeking from behind parked cars to watch. The pickup screeched backwards to prepare for a second hit, then roared forwards. At the last second, Bee shifted from car to robot in a smooth jump sideways, and Ironhide rose up before him, hands clenched into fists.

            Sam’s eyes went wide as he watched the normally-docile – okay, that had been disproved too many times lately to be true anymore – Bumblebee take a swing at Ironhide, who ducked and shoved Bee backwards. Sam could only guess that Bee’s half of the argument was being sent into Ironhide’s mind, because the only audible sound from him was furious growling, about the only sound he could manage.

            “I swear! I wasn’t interfering!” This seemed to get him nowhere but bad places, as Bee lunged at him, smashing him into the concrete so hard it cracked. “Okay, so I was, but it was for the common good!” He kicked Bee off of him, sending him backwards in a flash of yellow that came to a shuddering stop just before a building.

            “Stop this!” Ratchet’s voice boomed across the lot. Bee’s head jerked up, Ironhide freezing mid-swing. It also brought a very irritated Optimus over from the weapons and machinery compound. He stood tall before them, radiating absolute fury as he looked between them.

            “This is a disgrace.” His voice was hard. The audience scrambled to disband, rapidly disappearing from sight until they were alone on the street. “You should be ashamed of yourselves. I sincerely hope you can work this out between the two of you.” The strong implication was that if he had to intervene, it would be extremely unpleasant.

            Optimus turned his back on the pair, approaching Sam and Ratchet instead. “If I can have a word with you, Sam,” he held out his hand for Sam to climb onto, and after Sam did so, walked them away from the med center.

            “What the hell is wrong with you two?!” Ratchet’s voice carried over, along with the metallic sound of him smacking one of the two. “I leave you alone for a minute–”

            As soon as they were safely out of earshot, Optimus brought Sam up to eye level. “I am growing concerned about Bumblebee. He has not been fulfilling his duties as your guardian since you arrived at this city.”

            “That, uh, might be kind of my fault,” Sam admitted. “I told him not to, so.”

            “All the same, Sam, he needs to stay near you. We cannot risk your safety.”

            It wasn’t the worst punishment Bee could have gotten, Sam thought as he walked across the lot to inform Bee of his sentence. Bee wouldn’t mind. Sam might not, either.

 

\--

           

Sam was lying on his couch, wondering if it was really _his_ couch if the apartment he’d been given had come furnished. He’d cornered Bee that morning and sent him to get a temporary voice mod fix, and Bee was due back any minute. It had taken a good deal of begging to get Bee out the door, and Bee had only gone when Sam promised to wait for him at home, perfectly safe.

            Hours had passed, and Bee’s absence was giving Sam ample time to think, and he was starting to think it was time he didn’t really want. He’d been refusing to think about how he felt about Bee, about why, despite Bee lying to him and everything he’d done, why Sam was so willing to pretend it hadn’t happened. Why he ached to reach for Bee and keep him close. Why Bee suddenly having a form that Sam could actually hold and touch like a human had brought latent feelings surging up, finally having a form of expression, because Sam’s favorite person was suddenly a _person._ Bee had hurt him, but part of Sam was so excited to have Bee in this form that it wanted to forgive everything.

            Sam pushed himself off the couch, wandering over to the window that overlooked the street. The living room had a large bay window, like the one in his bedroom and the one in the kitchen. This one overlooked the street, and when he looked directly downwards, he could see Bee’s usual parking spot. Intermittent checks over the next fifteen minutes turned up nothing, and it was only when Sam had meandered into the kitchen that he heard the front door unlock and open. Bee appeared, lingering by the step between the kitchen and sunken living room, head hung.

            “You wanted to talk?” His voice still sounded strained, like it could break at any moment. Every time Sam had heard him talk, Bumblebee’s voice had sounded different. Sam had yet to hear what it was truly like, in any form.

            Yeah…” Sam beckoned for Bee to join him on the couch, and Bee shuffled over, sinking down at the other end. He kept his head bowed, bottom lip caught between his teeth. “How long will the temp fix last?”

            “I dunno.” Bee clenched his jaw slightly. In all the time Sam had known him, Bee had never been so frustrated by his muteness as he had been in the past few months. “Ratchet said maybe today. Probably less.”

            “Still hasn’t figured out how to fix it?”

            “Might be getting closer, he says. But he always says that.”

            “Oh. Well…” No point skirting the subject if he didn’t know how long Bee would be able to talk for. Ratchet’s version of a day was usually only a few hours. “Look. I really need to know why you did everything. The whole reason.”

            “I’m sorry,” Bee mumbled, sounding for all the world like he was apologizing for the worst sin imaginable, whatever that may have been. “I shouldn’t have hurt Mikaela. She was just so not right for you, and I was so _frustrated_ watching it.” He shifted around, brought his feet up onto the couch before him, putting more space between himself and Sam. Bee’s frustration was torturous for Sam to even watch, and he couldn’t imagine what it was like for Bee – unable to interact except as a car, unable to even _speak_ for himself. “I was jealous.” It was so soft, Sam almost couldn’t hear it, and he knew it wasn’t a voice mod problem.

            “But why?”

            “Because you loved her even though she was wrong for you, and you understood her so well.” Bee rubbed a hand over his face, and his next words were too muffled.

            “And what?” Sam prompted quietly. Bee dropped his hands, stared determinedly down at his lap.           

            “And you think I’m just a weird alien robot,” he repeated Sam’s own words. His voice was stony despite its crackling quality, forcedly void of any emotion.

            “Bee,” Sam reached for him then, but only as far as Bee’s ankle. “I didn’t know you then. I’d never _met_ an alien before, okay, hardly any humans have, so maybe I should get a tiny break for what I said? I didn’t know you yet. I know you now.”

            Bee looked at him, slightly less guarded, and Sam thought that he’d maybe hit something closer to home.

            “You were jealous?” Sam asked, and it was the wrong thing to say. Bee shut back down.

“Sam, tell me why you think I kissed you.”

“To get me away from her, so I’d leave her. For my own good.” Sam frowned. “Right? I know you didn’t like her –”

            “I liked her,” Bee protested. “She was nice. Her eyes made her look not real,” Bee added as an afterthought. Sam held back a sarcastic comment; Bee, currently a hologram, calling Mikaela, a true-blooded human being, unreal? Bee noticed the look that must have been on his face, though. “I didn’t say she _isn’t_ real. I said she doesn’t look real. She looks like a hologram, or something. They don’t look real if you look at them for long enough.” Maybe he wasn’t used to his own hologram form yet, talking about their otherness like he wasn’t one of them, having a weird aversion to his own kind.

            “Anyways,” Sam said, steering them firmly back to the point, “I get it, why it would hurt you to see me wasting my – my life with someone I wasn’t entirely happy with. You’re my best friend. I mean, I get it, the whole guardian thing, but…” Bee said nothing, but the way he wouldn’t meet Sam’s gaze told Sam plenty. “Okay, why are you acting like I’m way off base?”

            “Forget it.” Bee was shut down now, hard, drawing back more.

            “Why would you be jealous of her? You’ve always had my attention, you’re my best friend,” Sam could hear the plea in his own voice, but Bee didn’t respond to it.”

            “I know.” Bee sounded so frustrated, like he was unable to say it. The way he was acting, it was like Sam had been tormenting him all along, and only a mix between forced vocal silence and restraint had kept Bee from screaming. He sounded locked in frustration, and how would Sam have known, if Bee could never tell him? It had to be something else. Sam had been _so sure_ about his assumptions, but maybe they were wrong. Maybe it was something else.

            “Bee,” Sam said slowly. Bee had said something strange, about how Sam _understood_ Mikaela. “Are you jealous that I understand her because… I don’t get you?”

            “It doesn’t matter,” Bee said harshly, “I’m your guardian. I’m already asking a lot to be your friend, too. It’s not your fault you didn’t know me the way you knew her. I’m not the same as you.” Bee’s voice went in and out of a harsh whisper. So much for the day fix, but Sam had been expecting that. Ratchet always wildly overestimated the staying power.

            “Asking? Bee, I want you to be my friend. Neither of us asked for this–” Sam backtracked at the stricken look on Bee’s face, “as in, I didn’t have to _ask_ you to be my friend. It just happened. Because we fit together like that.”

            “You don’t trust me anymore.”

            “I was scared, Bee. I suddenly didn’t understand what you were doing or why. I can trust you if I _understand_ you. So, like… let me.”

            Bee gave him a helpless look. “I keep trying to tell you,” he whispered. “I was jealous. I didn’t want to be the weird alien robot.” His words faded away as he spoke.

            And Sam, Sam finally heard him.

Sam scooted decisively closer, reached to tilt Bee’s chin up so Bee looked at him. “I understand,” he said levelly, even though his heart was racing. Bee was so humanly jealous and sorrowful, and there was no greater good to his actions, no lofty guardianship, nothing to uncover beneath his words. He was jealous. He wanted to be more to Sam than the weird alien robot who had infiltrated his life.

“Oh, Bee.” Sam breathed, understanding, his heart breaking for all the times he didn’t. When Sam leaned in and kissed him, Bee was silent but for a soft sigh; it was a peaceful quiet, though, like Sam had finally started to understand Bee’s language of silence, like Bee finally felt heard.

\--

            Ratchet was silent for so long after Ironhide spoke that Ironhide almost wished he hadn’t said anything. Maybe he was blowing it out of proportion. Maybe it was none of his business. But it was _Bumblebee._ There were so few of them left, and Bee was so sweet and vulnerable, so eager to have his spark broken. Ironhide felt fiercely protective of everyone that was left. After everything that had happened, everything they’d _lost –_ he hated how there was always more to lose. They lost their home, they lost every home they could have to replace it that would feel the same, the _planet_ was lost. Everyone else he’d loved was gone, everyone _anyone_ had loved was gone. The remaining few were scattered among the stars, and even within this new post-loss life they’d constructed for themselves, when they had so little, there was still so much to lose.

            “I thought it might be something like that,” Ratchet finally turned to Ironhide. Ironhide had brought him to the lot beyond the hangar, where there was no one to hear them. The sun was setting behind the long stretch of flatness, across the field that splayed after the lot. “I’d really hoped it wasn’t.”

            “You didn’t see him, it was like…” he was lost for words. He’d seen it before, what Bee was heading for. He’d seen how sparkbreaking it could be, what it looked like to go on afterwards. “It means a lot to him.”

            “That’s exactly what I didn’t want to happen.” Ratchet seemed to focus on Ironhide then, who was sprawling on top of one of the military transport vehicles. “I hope we didn’t need that vehicle.”

            “Nope. Gutted it for parts.” The sigh he got said that Ratchet knew Ironhide was entertaining himself with ridiculous construction projects. “Well, maybe it’ll be fine.”

            “The truck’s destroyed. There is no chance it’s fine.”

            “Not the truck. Them.” Ironhide lifted a hand, as if to somehow indicate the pair in question.

            “I don’t know. It means more than the world to him.”

            “So what? Maybe it’s the same for Sam, too.”

            “Possibly. But for that to be true, they’d both have to be fully aware of the situation.”

            “So how much does he know?” Ironhide asked. “I mean, it can’t be nothing, right?”

            “Nothing,” Ratchet said, “Sam knows nothing.”


	7. Chapter 7

            Sam tried to evaluate how well-off he was, scrutinizing Skids. The Bot was staring right back at him intently, optics bright. It was unnerving, and Sam ducked his head again.

            “You have two more seconds before I show you what it’s like to be incinerated,” Skids leveled a glowing cannon at Sam’s face to demonstrate his point. Sam was used to the weaponry display though, and just looked back down at his cards.

            “Fine, fine.” He threw a couple poker chips out onto the table between them. “Call.” When Skids laughed with glee, Sam knew he was doomed.

            “I win!” He brandished his cards to show them off. Sam was amazed at the dexterity the Autobots had sometimes, as Skids fanned out the winning hand to flaunt it properly, miniscule in his giant fingers. Sam groaned.

            “That’s the last game I’m playing, okay? I have errands to run, like going down to the bank to declare bankruptcy.”

            “You’re no fun,” Skids scooped up the last of Sam’s poker chips.

            “I’ve got no more time left to bet! I already owe you seventeen pairs of new tires, six waxings, and forty-seven car washes! I’ll be busy until doomsday! You’ll have to drive exclusively on beds of nails to go through that many tires!”

            “Looks like that might come sooner than you think,” Sideswipe chimed in from across the hanger. When Sam looked in his direction, he pointed out the window. Bumblebee had been outside, trying to fix one of the transport vehicles in the fading daylight. Sam hadn’t seen much of him all day, had attended two classes in the morning – political science and military history – and Bee had been busy with his own work while Sam studied nearby. What was concerning was the fact that Ironhide was walking up to Bee, their Bot forms casting long shadows across the pavement.

            “Oh, this should be good,” Sam groaned, putting his head down on the table. “Go stop Ironhide before he beats Bee up. He’s your best friend, right? Keep him from killing mine!”

            Sideswipe crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t break up fights.”

            “Uh, and why the hell not, Mr. Ten Tons of Steel?”

            “Ironhide gets pissed when his paint gets scratched.” Sideswipe settled back to sit against the wall, content to just watch the situation Sam was sure would come to blows. “Narcissistic bastard.”

            “Sure you’re not just sulking cos he beat you at that stupid game?” Skids grinned, and Sideswipe flipped him off. Sam snickered.

            “Two points. Two fucking points.” He rounded on Sam next. “One more laugh, and I’m putting a blade down your throat.” Footsteps and a threatening growl came from the doorway. “Cool it, Bumblebee,” Sideswipe waved a hand in Bee’s direction. “Shouldn’t you be busy getting your ass whooped?”

            “I’m too busy,” Ironhide declared, striding up behind Bee. Sideswipe stood, stretched his arms over his head.

            “Found a new club we could try,” he said, following Ironhide out, “about four blocks from the usual one.”

            “Hey!” Skids jumped up, racing to catch up with them. “I wanna come!” Sam tossed his cards down onto the table, frowning at the losing hand.

            “Him drinking would really scare me,” Sam remarked. He jumped when he felt hands on his shoulders. Sam glanced up, saw Bee’s Autobot form collapsed into the Camaro and his holo form behind Sam. It was a little odd to see both at once, but nothing he couldn’t get used to. “You know, Ironhide said something strange,” Sam added, as Bee nudged him up out of his chair, strong hands guiding him to turn around. “At the club.”

Sam hopped up to sit on the tabletop, meaning to put some distance between them, but all Bee did was step between his legs and nuzzle closer. Sam paused, letting Bee press kisses along his jaw. “I didn’t really know what he meant by it, but.”

Bee drew back at the serious tone, but his hands still rested on Sam’s knees, and Sam didn’t have the heart to stop him. “We’ll talk later,” he decided, drawing Bee back in close again. Bee made a sound of delight, reaching for Sam. Sam shivered at the brush of Bee’s fingertips; Bee’s hands weren’t usually so cold. “But you gotta promise we’ll talk about it eventually.”

Bee paused, brought a cool hand to Sam’s cheek, leaned in and gave him a slow kiss on the forehead. “Okay,” Sam said, reassured. “C’mere, then.”

Bee came so willingly, Sam couldn’t resist guiding him more. He slid off the table, and in one smooth move he didn’t know he was capable of, had scooped Bee up so his legs were around Sam’s waist, turned to put him on the table instead. There, Sam could kiss him fully, take Bee’s face in his hands and lick into Bee’s mouth, draw tiny, breathy little moans out of him. Bee’s hands roamed wildly, like he couldn’t decide between clutching at Sam and touching him everywhere. He couldn’t say anything, but Sam knew what he wanted.

 _This,_ Bee’s grasping fingers said; _you,_ his parted lips begged.

“Oh, Bee,” Sam breathed, and gave Bee everything he wanted.

\--

Ironhide could tell, ten minutes into the drive, that Sideswipe wasn’t in the mood to go out. His theory was confirmed when he changed direction entirely and Sideswipe followed without a word, the silver corvette merely veering to the freeway exit ramp after him, no complaints from Sideswipe coming through his comm.

It was only nine at night; Ironhide took it upon himself to drive for three and a half hours, until they arrived at a deserted strip of coastline. The ocean lay black before them, as Ironhide rolled into his Bot form and climbed down the rocky cliffside to settle on the rocks, Sideswipe following.

The silence continued for a while, the only sound the waves crashing against the rocks. “You’re worried about them,” Ironhide finally said. Sideswipe didn’t move.

“Bee’s making a mistake,” he gritted out.

“Sides,” Ironhide tried to be gentle, “I don’t really think it’s a choice.”

“I suppose not.” Sideswipe scooped up a rock, flung it into the ocean, where it disappeared into the darkness with no discernable splash amongst the waves. “He’s just a sparkling, though, and it’s too late anyways. Whatever choice he makes now, the damage is done already. Figures, it’d happen to the one who won’t know what to do.”

“What if it had been you?” Ironhide knew it was stupid to ask, couldn’t help himself. “If you fell in love with a human, what would you do?” Sideswipe flung another rock, and Ironhide lost sight of its path in the dark.

“I wouldn’t,” Sideswipe said sharply, and why had Ironhide asked? It was so fucking sad; Sideswipe was right. He wouldn’t fall in love with a human, he wouldn’t fall in love with anyone ever again.

“I guess he just has to decide what to sacrifice. At least he seems happy right now.”

“That makes it worse.” Sideswipe said, the words harsh and final, “one day, he’ll wish he never was.”

\--

A blaring car alarm pulled Sam from sleep at five the next morning. He yanked the pillow over his head and did his best to ignore it, which probably didn’t do him any favors with his neighbors, whoever they were. A quick peek out at his room told him Bee had still not returned. As usual, though, there was no trace that he’d been there two nights ago – any clothing merely fell out of existence once it lost contact with his holo, and he had no real personal effects to speak of. Sam wanted to roll over and go back to sleep until Bee showed up to join him in bed, but since he hadn’t seen Bee in two days, he’d probably have to spend a ridiculous amount of time in bed for that to happen.

The car alarm kept beeping and wailing for seven more minutes, until Sam finally gave up on sleep and dragged himself out of bed and to the window to see who was the culprit. A silver corvette was in the street, headlights strobing and hazard lights flashing.

Sam opened his window a crack. “Okay!” he shouted down, “I’m coming!”

The car alarm shut off with a last beep. Sam ran to get dressed, before Sideswipe could grow impatient again. There was a note taped to the front door, and Sam snatched it before dashing down the stairs and trying to pull his jacket on one-handed while scanning the paper. The note was from Bee, and just said that Bee was working at the engineering complex, that Sideswipe would be watching over Sam, and that Bee apologized in advance for anything Sideswipe did.

Complaining about the need for an Autobot babysitter hadn’t gotten Sam anywhere in the last few years, and he doubted it would work now. Ironhide had been his substitute guardian the previous day, which had been fun, if a little hectic, but Sideswipe’s wakeup call made Sam think today would be slightly less enjoyable. As soon as he set foot on the sidewalk, Sideswipe’s passenger side door swung open, nearly taking out a man walking by.

“You know it’s five AM, right?” Sam grumbled, climbing in and shutting the door.

“You know I have things to do today, right?” Sideswipe pulled away from the curb, speedometer needle shooting to the right. “Just because you can’t get your lazy ass out of bed before ten AM doesn’t mean I have to shorten my to-do list.” Sam rolled his eyes and said nothing. He could see why Sideswipe and Ironhide were best friends.

 “Do I at least get to have breakfast, or is that considered unnecessary?” Sam slouched down and crossed his arms over his chest. The toe of his sneaker hit the glove box, and almost instantly, something shocked him. “Ow!”

            “Leave scuff marks and I’ll throw you from this car.”

            “ _Sorry._ Didn’t anyone ever tell you that black leather scuffs easily, and if you’re going to be a dick about it, you shouldn’t get it?”

            “I like it,” Sideswipe growled back. Sam was grateful when he stopped in front of one of the main cafeterias frequented by military personnel. He could have had breakfast at home, technically, except that Sam hadn’t had food in his kitchen in several days. His military-provided stipend – and how Sam would like to see what that invoice said, income for victim of sort-of alien abduction? Human/Autobot Rosetta stone fees? – had kept him rich with takeout food.

            “You have six and a half minutes,” Sideswipe instructed, opening the door again, “go.” Sam heaved a sigh.

            ‘That’s barely enough time to get in line!”

            “Six minutes and fifteen seconds.”

            Sam swore under his breath and scrambled to get out of the car. He returned seven minutes later to see the corvette pulling away from the sidewalk. “Hey! Hey!” Clutching his bagel, Sam sprinted to catch up, smacking at the locked door handle. People on the sidewalk gave him strange looks and a wide berth. “Let me in! I was thirty seconds late! Come on!”

            He kept slapping at the door and stumbling along in a clumsy run as Sideswipe sped along the sidewalk. It took half a block for Sideswipe to deign to stop for him, and when he did screech to a stop, Sam nearly fell from the fast change of speed. He yanked the door open and fell into the seat. “You,” he panted, “are the worst.”

            “You were late.” Sideswipe sped up impatiently and again, the speedometer needle flung itself from the left side of the circle to the right. “And I don’t like waiting.”

            He certainly didn’t; everything on his errands list was given the same rush treatment, from checking in with Bots and men on Lennox’s team to seeing how projects were progressing in different sectors. After a couple hours, they ended up in one of the towering buildings, Sam wandering around and waiting for Sideswipe to finish whatever he was working on. Sideswipe had tried to explain it, but stopped when he realized that the finer points of quantum mechanics were over his audience’s head.

            “Stuff with machines,” he summed up, and shooed Sam into the hallway. Sam meandered through until he got to the part where the building joined the military rec center. The first room he passed bore a sign that read ‘lounge,’ and before Sam could open the door, there was a large crash from inside, followed by a string of colorful curses.

            Inside, Sam found a large room filled with hectic movement. The room itself had been tastefully decorated, with black leather couches, a widescreen TV and gaming system. Men he recognized from Captain Lennox’s team were swarming around with ladders and colorful streamers; one ladder had overturned, and the soldier beneath it was cursing up a storm.

            “You okay?” Sam asked, seeing as the other men were too busy laughing to help.

            “I’ll live,” the soldier struggled to disentangle himself from the mass of streamers, until Sam pulled the red, white and blue mess away from him. The man sat up, and Sam saw he had sky-blue eyes, short blonde hair, and a dazzling smile. “Thanks. The things I do for my country! Would you believe the ladder fell on me when all I did was _look_ at it?”

            “You’re quite the maverick, Tanner,” Lennox climbed down from his ladder to grab more streamers. “We all strive to be just like you. Your bravery will be legend for generations.”

            “What are you guys doing?” Sam looked around; streamers were hung from every available inch of the room, including the doorway to the adjoining kitchen.

            “Decorating for the party tomorrow night,” Lennox said, grinning, “Fourth of July! Best holiday of them all!”

            “Actually,” Tanner put in from his spot on the floor, “I’m pretty fond of Christmas.” Lennox rolled his eyes.

            “For the presents?”

            “And the mistletoe,” Tanner waggled his eyebrows. Lennox sighed and shook his head. “Kissing happens to be one of my favorite past-times.” Had Sam imagined the look Tanner threw his way? He pretended he had, at least.

            “Great!” Lennox scooped up Tanner’s pile of streamers from the floor and righted the ladder. “Remind me to burn all the mistletoe in December. And would you get off the lfoor before the ladder falls on you again?”

            Without thinking, Sam offered a hand, and Tanner grabbed it to pull himself up. “Oh, right,” Lennox shifted the streamers to one arm, so he could gesture to Tanner. “Sam, this is Tanner Morrey.”

            “There are two Morrey’s here,” Tanner said cheerfully, “that’s why I get the privilege of having a first name.”  

            “Tanner, this is Sam Witwicky.” He turned to go, paused, “oh, Sam, party starts at eight tomorrow!”

            “Awesome,” Sam said, as someone tapped his shoulder. A soldier stood behind him, looking uneasy.

            “Sideswipe sent me with a message for you,” the man’s frown deepened. “Do I have to repeat it word for word?”

            “Uh… gist is cool.”

            “He said to tell Sam to get his sorry ass out there before he leaves without you, he said some things about your sense of punctuality, and some more about your generation and then your entire species, which I personally took some offense to –”

            “Sounds like him alright. Thanks for the message,” Sam started to leave, but turned to Tanner first. “Catch you later, I guess.”

            “See you!” Tanner blinded him with a brilliant smile, and Sam bolted from the room before Sideswipe could come looking for him. He sprinted back down the hallway, skirted a corner, stumbled through a doorway and reached the street in time to slam into the corvette before it left.

            “Don’t go!” he panted, scrabbling for the door handle.

            “You’re learning fast,” Sideswipe accelerated away from the curb as soon as Sam’s feet were off the pavement, “I have one more stop.”

            “You said that was your last one.”

            “Yes, well, maybe I lied to you.” They stopped in front of a small building. “Wait here.”

            “And risk getting murdered by decepticons?” Sam asked innocently, earning a growl from Sideswipe.

            “Fine, fine. Come. Don’t get murdered.” Sam hopped out, and Sideswipe’s human holo materialized beside him. Sideswipe’s default form was a tall, lean man in his early thirties, with sharply chiseled features, gunmetal gray eyes, tousled brown hair and a close-cropped beard that could almost be called just stubble. It was a form made for admiring, but it also seemed to suit him oddly well; Sam wondered _how_ the holos were chosen, exactly, because they seemed to fit each Bot so well. Sideswipe was already striding into the building, leaving Sam to catch up.

            Whatever Sam expected the building to be, it certainly hadn’t been a library, and yet there he was, at the circulation desk that stood sentry before rows upon rows of shelves. A white-haired woman perched on a chair, reading. She beamed when Sideswipe came up to the desk, though.

            “Sideswipe! How are you today!”

            “Just fine,” Sideswipe said, taking her hand and kissing it gently. “And you, Mrs. Wood?”

            “Oh, just wonderful!” she trilled. “And have I got a selection for you!” She tottered down the long length of desk, stooped to retrieve a stack of books from the built-in shelf. Sam was busy blinking in surprise. Sure, he’d known Sideswipe liked reading, but this was a tiny bit hilarious. He stood back, watching the librarian explain each title she’d chosen for him, Sideswipe nodding along, clearly rapt. It was probably the friendliest he’d ever seen Sideswipe.

            When Sideswipe had checked out the stack and bid Mrs. Wood a good day, Sam followed him back into the tiled lobby, Sideswipe flipping through one of the books.

            “That girl’s looking at you,” Sam said as they passed a bench in the lobby, the young woman peeking over her book at Sideswipe, gaze fixed on him. Sideswipe didn’t look over.

            “Mm. I’m sure.”

            “Do you know her?”

            “Doubt it.” He didn’t bother to check.

            “Great, you’re as arrogant as Ironhide.” That made Sideswipe glance over at him, snort a laugh.

            “There’s a difference.” He pushed open the door, and Sam rushed to keep up with his long strides.

            “Yeah? What’s that?”

            “I have a reason to be arrogant,” he informed Sam, tone so ridiculously matter-of-fact, Sam barely managed to keep in a snicker. “Shut up and get in.” The holo vanished and the corvette engine roared impatiently. Sam hurried to jump into the passenger seat before he got left behind.

            “Where to now?”

            “To take you back, thank Primus.” The corvette sped through the main street, wove through the smaller side roads; more than once, a pedestrian dived out of the way. “I’m afraid I’m just not cut out for this guardian stuff.”

            “No kidding. Hate to break it to you, but Bee is a hundred times better.”

            “At least I –” Sideswipe started, then seemed to change his mind. “If I wanted to be better, I would be. I just choose not to.”

            “Mm. Noble. And I’m sure you could have beaten Ironhide at that stupid game if you’d actually wanted to, right?”

            “Precisely.” The corvette pulled up in front of the engineering building. “Out.”

            “What’re we doing here?” Sam obeyed, dreading another over-his-head lesson on quantum mechanics. Sideswipe’s hologram appeared on the sidewalk beside him, started towards the gray building at a brisk pace. It was one of the buildings more frequented by humans than Autobots, too small scale for the Bots.

            “Returning a gift,” Sideswipe pulled open the glass door, and Sam caught it with his hands mere moments before he’d have caught it with his face. “You.”

            “Love you too.” Sam barely avoided running into the next door that closed in his face. “Oh, so Bee’s here!” He couldn’t help the excitement in his voice. He hadn’t seen Bee in two days, and it felt like even longer.

At the back of the building they came to a metal door labeled “Technological Development E – Restricted Access” that Sideswipe unlocked with his handprint, leading into a high-ceilinged room filled to the brim with noise.

“I try to avoid the place,” Sideswipe said, the reason immediately apparent. It was certainly headache-inducing, the scream of drills and clang of metal, heavy machinery from somewhere around a corner. In the center of the room was the machine they’d retrieved from the pyramid, workers swarming around it on multi-leveled scaffolding, the machine missing a few pieces from the last time Sam had seen it presumably being worked on individually elsewhere. 

“Isn’t that thing useless now?” Sam asked, pointing. Sideswipe nodded.

“Doesn’t stop them from being fascinated. Now where the hell’s Bee?” He started in one direction, but almost immediately after he’d left, someone came from the other direction and flung their arms around Sam like they were afraid he was going to disappear.

            “Bee!” Sam couldn’t help his glee; two days suddenly felt like a lot longer than it had actually been. “Was making Sideswipe by substitute guardian just a plot to make me appreciate you more?”

            Bee’s eyes were bright when he looked at Sam, radiating happy energy. Sam recognized the look on his face, though; Bee had something to say and couldn’t.

            “Voice mod went out entirely again, huh?” He touched his fingertips to the base of Bee’s neck, and Bee smiled affectionately. “That sucks.”

            “Good, you found him,” Sideswipe reappeared, “he’s yours now, Bee.” He walked off, probably thanking every deity in the galaxy that he was free of the temp guardian job.

            “Do I have to wait until you’ve finished here?” Sam asked, and Bee nodded, apologetic look on his face. “No problem, sounds cool.” Bee led Sam by the hand to a workstation, pointed to a stool Sam could sit on. Sam was perfectly content to just sit and watch Bee work at what looked like replicating part of the machine.

            Every now and then, Bee’s gaze would flicker up to Sam for a moment, like he was checking Sam was still there, and he’d blush every time he was caught at it. He was so much happier now, though, a thousand miles from the way he’d been a few months ago, when he was sulky and adamant that he wouldn’t talk about it, trapped in a prison of frustration because Sam just didn’t understand him.

Right now, Bee was radiant. Sam hoped to every deity that Sideswipe had been thanking a moment ago that he could make Bee this happy forever. The way Bee looked at him made Sam think that he could.  


	8. Chapter 8

            The fourth of July party was quite possibly the most enthusiastic one Sam had ever attended. The soldiers were at a nineteen on the patriotism scale, and it was contagious enough that even the Autobots had caught on. Sam wouldn’t say it wasn’t helped along, in the case of a few particular bots, by several drinks. Some smartass had figured out how to make their holo program realistic in pretty convenient ways.

            “Hey, Sam!” Lennox sought him out in a crowd of people. “Happy fourth! Would you do me a favor? I’m having some problems here.”

            “Yeah, what’s up?” Sam couldn’t imagine much that could stump the captain, honestly.

            “Would you mind telling me which hologram is who?” He waved a hand to indicate the scattered bots, “They came up with the program while my team was deployed and no one bothered to give us introductions! They’d rather just treat us like the substitute teacher and pretend to be each other.” Lennox’s grin told Sam that he would have been the cool substitute teacher though, who found the entire thing hilarious. Sam hadn’t seen anything of the holo program before Bee’s – well, the whole debacle. It made sense that it was a recent development, he doubted that was a standard feature for beings on another planet, being able to resemble humans on another. Someone could have _told_ Sam, but, well, he could admit that they’d been pretty busy lately.

            “Totally,” Sam swiveled to search the room. “Ratchet’s talking to Epps. Mudflap is that one,” he indicated the tall, almost-teenager with sandy hair. “And that’s Skids.” His twin, naturally, but with slightly less rounded cheeks, and no lisp. They were, characteristically, arguing with each other.

            “Who decided to let them drink? Aren’t they teenagers, sort of?” Lennox arched an eyebrow, taking a sip of his beer.

            “Ratchet tried, but they’re technically more than a couple hundred years old. Ratchet wants to petition to raise the drinking age to two thousand and one hundred. Where’s everyone else… you know Ironhide,” he skipped over the suave brunette Lennox was familiar with, “and that’s Sideswipe.” He indicated the gray-eyed man being cornered by a slender redheaded woman who was talking animatedly, despite little interest from her audience.

            “Oh, _that’s_ who Kate’s got a crush on? Not sure that’ll work out.” It wouldn’t get off the ground, Sam could see, given how Sideswipe was looking for an exit.

            “Optimus is there,” Optimus was tall, with military-perfect posture and a serious expression. He would have fit in with any of the officers easily. “And Bee,” Sam added, looking for him. He felt a hand at the small of his back, and smiled. “Right here.” Lennox nodded to Bee in greeting.

            “He’s giving me the holo introductions. It would be easier if Ironhide wasn’t going around trying to fool everyone constantly, too.”

            “A lot of things would be easier without him,” Sam snickered.

            If only to compound the problem, the Bots – Ironhide, mostly, and the twins – had come up with a new guessing game. Sam watched the parade of beautiful holos, snickering as Lennox and some of his teammates were repeatedly stumped.

            At the moment, Lennox was leaning forward on the couch, elbows on his knees, brow knitted in thought.

            “Sideswipe,” he finally decided.

            “I’m not _playing!”_ Sam heard from the other side of the room.

            “You don’t know your own truck?” The blonde before them spread his arms in put-upon betrayal.

            “I meant to say Ironhide!”

Lennox continued his losing streak with the next one, too, a platinum blonde woman with legs for days. Ironhide was affronted that Lennox would guess it was Skids.

“He couldn’t manage to look this great!” Ironhide protested in outrage.

“The arrogance is a dead giveaway, you should have opened with that!” Epps chimed in. “Man, I’m not flirting with any more women in this city, if it could turn out to be one of you guys in disguise.”

“I would be the best date you ever had,” Ironhide declared, “and you should be so lucky!”

Half an hour later, Bee dropped onto the couch beside Sam, nudged Sam’s shoulder with his. “How’s the guessing going?”

            “Simply terrible,” said the raven-haired woman before them, so pale Sam would have sworn she was either a vampire or part trout. Lennox frowned in concentration.

            “Mudflap.”

            “I said simply terrible, not thimply terrible!”

            Sam nudged Bee again, smiled at him. “Why don’t you play?” Bee shrugged, traced his fingers in circles on Sam’s back.

            “Can’t.” Even the one word was a struggle for him, so Sam didn’t ask him to elaborate, just leaned over to give Bee a sympathetic kiss on the cheek. He caught sight, just past Bee, of the man Lennox incorrectly guessed to be Ironhide, but was really Optimus just passing through. As if anyone could mistake the grave seriousness that was always etched into his features.

            Lennox’s entire team had joined in; a freckled redhead waved cheekily at a soldier who guessed her to be Skids, then flipped him off when he won with his guess of Mudflap, while Epps cheered after finally correctly guessing Ironhide on the first try.

            “Think I’ll keep this body,” Ironhide taunted, swaying his hips and flipping the sleek hair over his shoulder, “bet anyone would let me cut in line anywhere I went.”

            “How can they be so good at this?” Tanner leaned over the back of the couch, propping his forearm across Sam’s shoulder.

            “Pretty top-notch program, huh? Pretty sure Ironhide shouldn’t be trusted with that kind of technology. He definitely abuses his power in clubs,” Sam replied. Tanner had to lean close to hear him over the din in the room.

            “Makes sense,” Tanner said, as Ironhide debuted a look that featured great biceps, slicked-back red hair, and a lumberjack beard. “I’d dance with him.”

            Sam didn’t miss how Bee was watching them, looking lost in his silence, and reached to squeeze Bee’s thigh affectionately. Bee already knew Tanner, and didn’t seem to be a huge fan.

            “I went with him to one in the city,” Sam said, “pretty sure his life mission is to dance with every person _as_ a different person.”

            “Man, I kinda want to go with him.”

            Ironhide reappeared as his default holo, but Tanner didn’t know that, chiming in with a guess that he was Sideswipe.

            “I’m not playing right now! And he isn’t playing at all!” Ironhide threw out his hands, “do I look like Sideswipe?!” Sam grinned as Ironhide stomped over to refresh his drink.

            “I don’t know if he’d let you go,” Sam laughed, “I think he hates you now.”

            “Wonder if it’s written into the code that they _have_ to look like models every time, anyways,” Tanner said, “because that’s ridiculous, they’re making everyone else look bad.”

The forms the holo program chose were pretty striking; Sam assumed that, if they deliberately recalibrated it, they could choose more realistic additions, but he could see why they wouldn’t bother. He glanced over at Bee, who wasn’t paying attention any more. Sometimes, Bee looked like them, was the thing: tan skin that practically glowed, sparkling amber eyes framed by the longest lashes, either without a speck of stubble or with a perfectly even dusting across his cheeks. Sometimes, he didn’t: a tiny chip on his front tooth, stubble a little sparse in some places, cheeks too pink, just little changes that Sam would have sworn weren’t there a day ago.

            Bee noticed Sam staring, offered an inquisitive look with his smile.

            “Nothing,” Sam said, reached to squeeze Bee’s hand, “almost ready to get out of here? Together?”

            _Can’t wait,_ Bee’s silence sang back.

\--

            Sam sat outside the Autobot hanger, textbook open on his lap. August had turned out to be even hotter than July, much to his disappointment. The sprawling building had the best AC currently, seeing as the unit in Sam’s apartment couldn’t compare to the power it took to cool such a massive space; he’d actually gotten too cold inside and had retreated to sit on the cement outside for a break.

            It was quiet; most of the Autobots were off in the city, leaving the huge runway of a parking lot blank and peaceful. Bee was working on something inside; it was technically their living quarters, with a lounge up front and a hallway leading to a multitude of private rooms. Bee had mentioned upgrades to the security system, and Sam was happy to tag along; he liked it when Bee’s work allowed him to hang out nearby, instead of being stuck with a hopefully-better-than-Sideswipe babysitter. Sam supposed he’d never be entirely free of guardians, after the Decepticon attacks; without one, he’d probably be fair game to the metal monsters.

            _Bang._

            “Hey, that’s cheating!”

            “Not ath bad ath you cheated!” The ground shook as a Bot hit the ground. Sam sighed, went back to his textbook. The twins were playing some game across the pavement.

            “Hey!” One bellowed, “Sam’s It!”

            “What? It?” Sam’s eyes widened, as the pair started sprinting towards him. “If I’m It, you run _away_ from me, not _to_ me!”

            “Not in this kind of tag!” Skids yelled. Sam stared as they shoved each other in their haste to get to him, and then realized they were dead serious.

            “Don’t hurt me!” He jumped to his feet and bolted. The twins changed direction immediately, pushing at each other and pounding after him. “No, no, no! I don’t want to die playing tag! What a stupid way to go!”

            “Stop being such a wuss!” Skids swiped at him and Sam had to nearly dive away.

            “No fair!” How could no one notice the three of them running in circles on the pavement, or that he was about to be squashed to death? “Help!” The only thing working in his favor was the fact that they were still shoving at each other, which slowed them down considerably, but the shocks this sent through the ground were throwing Sam off his balance.

            “This isn’t a fun game!” He shouted, as their hands reached after him. And down he went, bouncing painfully off the cement, trying to tuck and roll and doing no such thing.

            All at once, he was scooped off the ground, lifted high in the air. Sam huddled against sun-warmed metal, breathing in hard gasps. He lifted his head in time to see Skids go flying in one direction, Mudflap tumbling in the other. Bee was the one holding Sam, cradling Sam to his chest and glowering at the twins.

            “That’s cheating!” Mudflap protested, jumping and running back over, but Bumblebee threw out his arm and caught Mudflap across the chest, sending him to the ground. Sam could hear the hum of Bee’s diagnostic laser as it washed over him. Sam ran through his own checks, winced when he tried to bend his wrist.

            “You hurt him,” the voice wasn’t Bee’s own, but the radio snippet was serving as his for the moment, and sounded as unhappy as Bee probably felt. Sam wondered where he’d dug it up from; trailer from a mafia movie? “Now if I ever, I mean if I ever, see you here again, you die, just like that.” Definitely a mafia movie.

            “We live here!” Skids had come back over, clearly sulking about being hurled across the runway like a discus by his twin.

            “But we’re also thorry!” Mudflap darted behind his twin and started dragging him backwards.

            Bee just growled, and walked away from them. The questioning sound he gave was one Sam recognized.

            “Yeah, I’m fine, don’t worry. I just hurt my wrist a little bit.” He tried moving his wrist again and grimaced. “But that doesn’t mean you can kill them, okay?” Bright optics flickered down to him. “Okay?” Bee grumbled, but made an affirmative sound. From the direction of the runway, Sam heard smashing noises, as Bee carried him in the direction of the medical center.

            “It was your stupid idea!” Skids was shouting.

            “Nuh-uh!”

            Once at the medical center, Sam was transferred to Ratchet’s hands to be scanned again. “Nothing serious,” Ratchet confirmed, shutting off the diagnostic beams. “What were you doing, anyways?”

            “Playing a game,” Sam said sheepishly. Ratchet looked at Bee.

            “Should have known,” he said, in response to whatever Bee had comm’d to him. “Sounds like more of a hunt than a game.”

            “He exaggerates!” Sam insisted. Ratchet set Sam down, and his holo appeared.

            “I’m sure,” Ratchet’s holo headed into the adjoining storage room, came back with a splint. “Sounds just like the twins, if you ask me. Your wrist?” he held out a hand, and Sam reluctantly placed his wrist in it. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Sam, I’m just putting it in a brace, not performing surgery.” He did up the Velcro straps, instructed him to wear it for a couple days, and to ice in twenty-minute stints. “I’ll have Ironhide take you home so you can put ice on that. He’s lurking around here somewhere.”

            “What about Bee?” Sam asked, and Bee shrugged, also looking to Ratchet questioningly.

            “We have a few things to discuss.” That didn’t sound good. Sam looked between them, but Bee seemed as clueless as him.

            “I’ll see you at home?” Sam asked Bee, as the pickup truck roared up outside the medical center, horn giving three short blasts, and then seven long ones. Bee nodded, fidgeting nervously.

            Sam had no idea what they could be talking about; he watched from the pickup window as Ironhide drove him away. “Know what’s up with them?” Ironhide asked, and Sam sighed.

            “Nope.”

\--

Bee was reluctant to be left alone with Ratchet, dreading the tough conversation that was obviously about to happen. Usually, it was about Sam and how something terrible had happened to him, so Bee had come to dread their chats.

            “I have a new idea how to fix your voice mod,” Ratchet said, and Bee relaxed. It couldn’t be that bad, then.

            [That’s great, how?] he was tired of having to comm his companions instead of just speaking aloud, and speaking to _Sam –_ he’d never had complete freedom to do that before.

            “Your human form.” Ratchet was looking at him like this was something to worry about.

            [Okay… but that’s good.] He watched Ratchet, waiting for the downside. [But how can you operate on a hologram? It’s just, y’know. A hologram. It’s only got receptors, it’s not _real._ ]

            “Exactly,” Ratchet said slowly, “A hologram only has receptors.” The way he stressed the word _hologram_ made the realization dawn on Bee.

            [No. No, you can’t. Ratchet, no. You can’t.]

            “Bumblebee, you’re going to have to tell him sooner or later. I was working on your voice mod problem, to find its origin, and I think we’ve been going about it the wrong way. We need to work on the problem in the form in which it occurred –”

            [No. I can’t tell him.]

            “Don’t you want to speak again? Sam’s going to have to find out sometime, or he’ll figure it out for himself, so you may as well tell him.”

            [I don’t know. Maybe I can think about it.]

            “Well… I think you should put some serious thought into it.” Ratchet turned away, pretending to look through the shelves, “soon.”

            [Why soon?]

            “It’s just a suggestion.”

            [Optimus wants me to, doesn’t he?] Bee’s optics flickered down. [Figures. Not much use for a spy who can’t talk.]

            “We all want what’s best for you, Bumblebee. But take your time, I just wanted you to know you have a new option.”

            [So you’ll have to do surgery… not on my holo form] Bee said, almost to himself. Ratchet nodded. [I’ll think about it.]

            Back at Sam’s apartment, he found Sam lying on the couch with an ice pack on his wrist, half watching a movie. Sam didn’t ask questions as Bee joined him on the couch, just sat up briefly so he could lie down with his head in Bee’s lap.

            “So,” Sam ventured after a while, “Ratchet say anything interesting?” He tilted his head back to look at Bee, and Bee shrugged a shoulder noncommittally. “I hear he wants to up the Bot drinking age so the Twins can’t drink,” Sam remarked, “can’t say it’d be a bad idea. They’re psychos on a good, one hundred percent sober day.”

            Bee nodded along, grateful Sam didn’t make him talk about Ratchet. He tried to push the conversation from his mind, closing his eyes and focusing on Sam’s words. Bee loved having Sam so close to him, radiating warmth and affection, talking at Bee happily.

            Bee had so much to _say_ to him, though. With his own words, in his own voice.


	9. Chapter 9

 

"-Whereas protactinium has an orthorhombic crystal structure-"

            After that particularly fascinating tidbit of information, Sam decided he couldn’t take any more.

            “Uh, I just remembered!” he announced, squinting into the sun as he looked up at Optimus towering above him, who was fixing a hole the twins had put in the hanger roof, “I promised Skids I’d play poker with him! He’d be so disappointed if I didn’t show up.” Like Skids would even notice, with so many other victims around him.

            “I believe I saw the twins inside,” Optimus supplied helpfully. Sam bid him goodbye before he could have any more facts about the elements crammed into his brain, circled around to the front of the hanger. True to Optimus’s word, Sam found the twins inside, along with Ironhide and Sideswipe. This was better than Sam had hoped for, the other two serving as an effective resistance to the twins’ ridiculousness. That was, when Ironhide’s arrogance didn’t egg them on, and Sideswipe’s bad moods didn’t redirect their attention back to Sam. They were all in their holo forms; they had some human-sized furniture in a corner of the lounge by the human-sized entrance, and tended to use their holos for poker, for the convenience of using human-sized cards.

            Before Sam could even get their attention, occupied as it was by their current loud argument over cheating, Sam tripped over something as he circled around the couch. He was caught before he hit the ground, and found Bee grinning at him, hiding behind the back of the couch. Sam had seen the truck, corvette, and matching green and red sports cars parked outside in the sunlight, but hadn’t seen the Camaro anywhere, so he’d assumed Bee wasn’t at the hanger.

            “Hi, Bee,” he managed to get out, before Bee’s lips were on his own. After a good, long kiss, Sam pulled back to grin back at him. “Are you trying to get out of playing poker?” Bee shrugged, tilted his head in the direction of the yelling that had erupted from the table.

            “You cheater!”

            “I didn’t cheat, you just suck at this!”

            “You’re literally stealing my chips!”

            “Ith not yourth!”

            “And if you hide any more cards-”

            “If either of you say one more word, I will go out there and slash your tires. Understood?”

            Sam shook his head, sliding down to the floor beside Bee. The rug they’d put down was a little dusty, but he quickly forgot to notice, Bee wiggling closer and fisting his hands in Sam’s shirt as he kissed Sam deeper. His hips pressed forward, one leg slipping between Sam’s knees, and Sam had to quiet his moans.            

            “How’s that?” Sam whispered, skimming his fingertips under Bee’s shirt and along the fine line of hair that traced up Bee’s navel. Bee shivered, and his grip on Sam’s shirt tightened when Sam shifted his hips down more firmly against Bee’s.

            “You can’t have five fuckin’ aces in one hand! We’re using one deck!” came from the table, distinctly Ironhide.

            “That does it, I’m going to go break your windshield.” A chair scraped back, but then there was a thud as Sideswipe was presumably yanked back into his chair.

            “Sit your ass down or I’ll break every one of your windows before you can get to mine!” Skids countered.

            Sam pressed kisses down Bee’s neck, one hand firm on Bee’s hip to keep him close enough that his erection ground against Sam’s thigh. Bee looked like he would be moaning if he could get the sound out; sometimes, it was like his receptors were extra dialed-in, and he reacted to everything like he was really, really feeling it, and Sam loved it.

They froze briefly when more footsteps were heard, but it was just someone else walking through the Bot entrance towards the table.

            “Shh,” Sam whispered anyways, giving Bee a series of short kisses that left Bee panting.

            “Has anyone seen Ratchet?” Optimus’s voice floated over. “I wanted to speak with him.”

            “No, what about?” Sideswipe answered.

            “Is it about that procedure thing?” Ironhide spoke up next.

            “Thing? What thing?” Skids asked.

            “Yes, it’s about that,” Optimus said, “I don’t know much about poker, but Ironhide, why do you have seven cards?”

            “Cheater!” Skids shrieked gleefully.

            “Shut up. What procedure?” Sideswipe interrupted him.

            “Bee’s,” Ironhide supplied. “Maybe, anyways, it’s just Ratchet’s new idea.” Sam looked down at Bee, who wasn’t meeting his eyes.

            “That’s great,” Sam whispered to Bee, nudging him gently, “why didn’t you tell me?” Bee shrugged. “Nervous?” Sam guessed, and Bee nodded, gratitude flooding his eyes when Sam understood him.

The next thing Sam heard was a sports car roaring up outside, and then there were more footsteps. Bee looked as confused as Sam, unable to figure out who that could be. Sam reluctantly untangled himself from Bee, crawling to the end of the couch and peering around. The holo standing at the hanger entrance wasn’t someone Sam recognized; he had reddish-brown hair that was slicked back and tied in a low bun, a dark copper beard, sharp cheekbones and dark eyes.

Sam looked to Bee to ask who it was, and found Bee staring, wide-eyed and astonished. The other Bots hadn’t noticed yet, too busy yelling again; Sam could see them too, from around the couch.

“You calling me a cheater?”

“Takes one to know one, Skids!”

            “Yeah, well you’re a card thief!”

            “And he’th altho a chip thief!”

            “Don’t defend him, defend me!”

Sideswipe shoved his chair back, jumping to his feet. “One more word from either of you two, and –” Sam watched as Sideswipe noticed the stranger in the doorway. Sideswipe froze immediately, and when the other Bots looked, they too went dead silent.

In the next heartbeat, Sideswipe had bolted across the hanger and thrown his arms around the unknown man in the doorway.

“Who…” Sam started to whisper, trailing off when he saw how Sideswipe was shaking with sobs, the stranger holding him tight.

            “ _Sunstreaker,”_ Sideswipe choked out, barely audible. Sunstreaker bent his head to whisper into Sideswipe’s ear, holding him closer.

            The Bots at the table were silent, clearly shocked by something about the scene. It was Skids whose whisper broke the silence.

            “I thought Sunstreaker was his twin?” No one at the table answered him.

            “That was always more ruse than reality,” Optimus finally spoke, rising from the table. “We never believed you could return to us, Sunstreaker,” It should have sounded warm, but there was something chilly and formal lurking there. The words should have belonged to another tone, the tone should have been matched with crueler words.

            “Deactivation only lasts until someone is reactivated,” Sunstreaker answered, narrowing his eyes at Optimus over Sideswipe’s shoulder. “I understand why it was done, even if I do not agree.”

            “Perhaps,” Optimus cleared his throat, “I made the wrong decision.”

            Sideswipe jerked back at his words, whirling around and fixing a startlingly furious glare on Optimus. He kept one arm locked around Sunstreaker’s back, like he couldn’t make himself let go. Sam had never seen Sideswipe like this – not angry, he’d seen that plenty of times, but Sideswipe was emotional, practically falling apart.

            “Decision?” he repeated, voice low and dangerous. “ _Decision?”_

            “At the time, it was the right one to make.” Optimus was clearly going to stand his ground.

            Sideswipe was quiet, but his silence was threatening. “Did you do it?” he finally asked, voice hard. Optimus squared his shoulders.

            “Yes. It was necessary. I regret it had to be done, but I believe it was unavoidable.”

            Sam looked to Bee beside him, and Bee had a hand over his mouth, tears welled in his eyes and trickling down his cheeks. He looked as betrayed as Sideswipe sounded, staring at Optimus in horror.

            “You took him from me.” Sideswipe still wouldn’t let go of Sunstreaker, one hand clenched tightly in his shirt, the other curled into a fist. “You think that was _necessary?_ You said _they_ did it! You said there was no bringing him back, because they _destroyed_ him!” His anger had taken off like a wildfire, roaring to furious life. “You said they did it!”

            “The Decepticons cannot deactivate an Autobot. Only-” Optimus’s tone was wrongly placating.

            “Only another Autobot can do that,” Sideswipe snarled, “and it was you.”

            “Optimus did it?” Ironhide whispered.

            “They’re not twins?” Skids asked, a little too loudly. “Did Optimus know they weren’t twins?”

            “No, he knew,” Ironhide said, like he was coming to the realization, “he knew, and that’s why he did it.”

            “It was _you,”_ Sideswipe snarled, and Sam had never seen him so angry, never seen _anyone_ so angry. It was like the world was on fire, and Sideswipe had found the arsonist. It was _exactly_ that: Sideswipe’s entire world had imploded, and he knew who had purposefully caused it. The magnitude of what he’d lost, of what Optimus had chosen, of what it had _done_ to Sideswipe, reforming him in misery’s image because that was what ruled him after that kind of loss, and of being reborn again from a new burning down by betrayal – that Sideswipe was even still standing was a miracle.

            “It was over five hundred years ago, and the situation was –” Optimus began, but Sideswipe wasn’t hearing it.

            “The situation wasn’t yours to manipulate!” Sideswipe roared.

            “Perhaps if you hadn’t lied from the start and put everyone’s lives in danger,” Optimus said, and finally, Sam started to – not understand, but at least start to see them all five hundred years ago: Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, lying about something that endangered the others. Optimus, a leader during wartime, keeping his eyes firmly on the greater good. It was almost worse, to see things unfolding in ways that were characteristic of them, taken to horrible extremes. It was worse to see it make sense.         

            “I did it because I didn’t want to lose him when I’d already lost everything else,” Sideswipe hissed, “and then you took him from me.”

            Sam jumped when he felt a hand on his arm, but it was just Bee, reaching for him. He turned his wet face against Sam’s neck, climbing into Sam’s arms, breathing ragged. Sam was heartbroken just watching, but Bee – Bee had been alongside them all along, was seeing that his friend’s half-century of devastation had been caused by someone he trusted with his life.

            “Optimus,” Sunstreaker spoke up, reaching to uncurl Sideswipe’s fingers from his shirt and drawing Sideswipe fully against his side instead. “While I understood your logic, you have to see that there should have been more factors involved in your decision.”

            “There was a war involved.” Optimus squared his shoulders, jaw tight. “Our first responsibility is to the Autobots.”

            “No world stops for a battle. Ours shouldn’t have had to either, even if yours may have. I know you were protecting our species as a whole, but you have to allow the beings within it to live as well.” Sunstreaker sounded like he was used to speaking to Optimus, Sam realized, wondered how he’d ranked before – everything happened.

            “You didn’t have to kill him,” Sideswipe spat, to a level look from Optimus.

            “Would you rather have lived apart? This was the best way.”

            There was a choking sound back at the table, Ironhide. “That was the best?! He’s been a wreck this entire time.” None of the three at the front of the room looked at him.

“We were trusting you to take care of us! You were our _leader!_ The whole planet was dead and it was just _us,_ we were supposed to take care of each other!” Sideswipe’s outrage was even noisier than Ironhide’s.

“You believed that, and yet you lied to us about who you were to each other? You were the first to fail your team.”

There was a long, tense silence. Sam ran his fingers through Bee’s hair in a useless attempt to comfort him, everything he could do too small in the face of this.

“Optimus,” Sunstreaker finally broke the silence, “I didn’t fight you, because you promised to take care of him and that he would be safer without me. All that mattered to me was that he knew I didn’t want to leave him. That was _all_ I asked of you.”

“I believed the truth would hurt him more.”

“You don’t know him like I – did.” Sunstreaker fumbled at the word, and watching the realization dawn on his face was heartbreaking, realizing that he’d been gone so long that maybe he didn’t _know_ the Bot in his arms anymore. Worse still was the way Sideswipe looked at him, though: _broken._

“You let him?” Sideswipe asked, the words cracked open and opening a void he could get lost in forever. Sunstreaker said nothing, pained look on his face, and that was the end of what Sideswipe could take without falling apart, because then his holo vanished, and they heard the howl of the corvette engine roaring away from the hanger. Sunstreaker stood alone before them, but Ironhide was the one who shoved his chair back and stood, facing Optimus.

“You’ve watched him suffer all these years? He hasn’t been the same since the day Sunstreaker left.”

“I thought he would be strong enough to let it go.”

“That’d be weakness. He was strong enough to go on.” He strode up to Sunstreaker, pulled him into a hug. “I always hoped you’d come back for him,” he said quietly, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell him you never would have left him. I should have known.”

“I thought he would have,” Sunstreaker said, voice faraway. Ironhide squeezed his shoulder, and then his holo vanished, too, quickly followed by the twins at the table; Optimus, alone in the hanger, retreated as well. Several car engines were heard fading into the distance, and only Sunstreaker was left, watching the retreating cars speed away.

            Sunstreaker sighed, and then walked right over to the couch, dropping to one knee before them. “What are you guys doing over here, Bee?” He seemed to recognize Bee easily; maybe, Sam thought vaguely, focusing on the wrong, unimportant parts for lack of an ability to grasp the rest, the Bots used the holo program before, on some far earlier Earth trip. “I’m sorry you had to hear all that. You must be Sam?” he looked to Sam, and Sam could only nod mutely. “Ratchet told me about you.”  

            “But… Optimus…” Sam tried to ask, because he knew Bee wanted to and couldn’t.

            _Really?_ Bee mouthed, anxious, and Sunstreaker nodded.

            “Still got that voice mod issue, huh? Yeah, he… felt like he had to.”

            “But he still does,” Sam said, maybe holding onto Bee a little tighter, Bee tense in his arms. “He still thinks he did the right thing.”

            “Yeah. But I’m not going to let that happen to anyone else, what he did to me or what it did to Sides.”

Sunstreaker looked over his shoulder in the direction Sideswipe had gone. The same separation, and they both had spent it with completely different types of hopelessness. The look on his face when he’d found Sideswipe was like he was seeing the sun after five hundred years of darkness, like he’d been waiting for it to return. And Sideswipe – he’d looked like he’d known it never would and yet, there it was, a warmth he'd thought he'd never feel again shining down on him. 


	10. Chapter 10

            Sunstreaker had always liked the human hologram program. They’d developed it centuries ago, to interact with humans who had seen only primitive machines and whose technology offered inconvenient forms they could disguise themselves as. Sunstreaker’s favourite use for it, though, was with Sideswipe. It was hard to hide as a Bot on this planet, where nothing was built for them and nowhere fit like home. Maybe that was a tiny part of it too, wanting to feel like he fit the landscape, like it had been made for him to find a home in it.

            Like this, hiding on a building rooftop at sunset, the holo program was perfect. Sunstreaker could hold Sideswipe in his arms, chin on Sideswipe’s shoulder, chest to his back. Maybe part of him just wanted to be as close as possible because he could feel the five-hundred-year gap between them. When Sunstreaker was reactivated by the Allspark’s bursting release of energy, he’d felt like he could get up and find Optimus still walking away from him, Sideswipe oblivious to what could have happened. His sensors had recalibrated almost immediately, though, robbing him of the illusion that everything remained as it was. Sideswipe had spent every day of those five hundred years painfully awake, had escaped none of the pain.

            Sunstreaker had found Sideswipe easily, knowing his tendency to hide on higher ground. All they had here was buildings, so Sunstreaker had checked each, and found Sideswipe all-but waiting for him, accepting Sunstreaker’s arms around him without a word.

            “I do still love you,” Sideswipe finally spoke, without turning around. “He told me you must have been killed by a Decepticon and nothing could be done to save you since we couldn’t find you.”

            “Would you still love me if you’d known I’d let him?” Sunstreaker asked, but he knew. The way they’d always loved each other – it felt fated, like this was the only way they knew, like they were incapable of anything else. It could feel like a blessing, among other things. “You didn’t find anyone else, the entire time?” They’d found their lost ways with such ease, Sunstreaker knew Sideswipe hadn’t relearned any of it with anyone else.

            “I couldn’t,” Sideswipe said. “I couldn’t do it. Love wouldn’t be the same without you.”

            “I don’t know if I did the right thing,” Sunstreaker admitted, had been thinking it since the moment Sideswipe saw him. “At the time, it was you or me, and I wanted to protect you, but – but I think I didn’t. I think I got the easy way out instead.”

He should have fought harder. Should have been brave enough to ask Sideswipe _our entire species, or me?_ and let Sideswipe run away with him. Should have kept their secret better, should have known what his decision would do to Sideswipe, that he wouldn’t move on with his life, that it would stop when Sunstreaker’s did. “I’m sorry I left you.” Left him, stole part of him, killed Sideswipe when he died. Sunstreaker hadn’t thought he was damning Sideswipe to five hundred years of agony.

            “It wasn’t your fault.” Maybe Sideswipe could forgive him that easily; maybe the years lost between them made it possible for him, while Sunstreaker still felt the decision so freshly. He felt like he’d betrayed Sideswipe only a few hours ago, not hundreds of years, and had walked back to find him a completely changed Bot. Sunstreaker would never, never be able to forget the years he’d missed; Sideswipe was changed so deeply and irrevocably. Sunstreaker hadn’t thought he’d ever be back; Sideswipe hadn’t known for sure, and the years and years of desperate uncertainty had shaken him to his core. “I still love you,” Sideswipe said, and how could he? He’d become an entirely different Bot, changed and devastated. And Sunstreaker – he _was_ the same. Exactly, like he’d woken up moments later. How could Sideswipe love Sunstreaker the way he had before?

            Maybe Sideswipe knew what Sunstreaker was thinking, because he turned, pressed his face to Sunstreaker’s neck. “I’m still me, even after losing you,” he said softly, “and we were made to love each other.”

xxxxxxxxxxxx

            “Okay, but, you’re not really a qualified doctor,” Sam said, possibly for the hundredth time, all-but hovering over the chair he’d been appointed to sit in.

            “Yes, but I’m in possession of every piece of information your species has ever learned about medicine, and I am a qualified medic for Autobots.” Ratchet smiled at Sam warmly, still trying to comfort him even after Sam’s never-ending inquisition about the surgery. “This will take a few hours. You’re welcome to wait here, if you wish.”

            He’d borrowed a surgical suite in the medical center for humans, which was joined to the Autobots’ center, and had even borrowed several nurses and other assistants. The normalcy of the scene was at least comforting; it wasn’t the Bots’ cavernous, metal ward, it was a hospital. It was a hospital, with carpeting and waiting room chairs and beige paint, and it all sounded like stupid, unimportant things, but it felt familiar. This was the place Sam had come to when his dad had his appendix removed and was totally fine afterwards; this was where he got his cast off his arm in third grade and was perfectly okay after it all. Not this hospital, but it _felt_ like this hospital. Sam felt better.

            “I just have one more question,” Sam said, just as Ratchet was starting to leave, “how can you like… do this?”

            “How so?”

            “I mean… it’s a hologram. It’s receptors and light, or like… the really advanced version of a hologram. How can you _operate_ on it?”

            “He has a very… advanced program,” Ratchet said, probably vastly oversimplifying, “you’ll have to ask him for the details.” He glanced up at the clock on the wall. “I have to go now, Sam. I’ll send someone out later to update you, okay?” Sam nodded, gaze sliding back to the floor. Ratchet crossed the room again, to put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “He’s going to be perfectly fine, Sam. We’ll take care of him.”

            Despite Ratchet’s promise that everything was going to be just fine, Sam couldn’t help but worry. He couldn’t even begin to figure out how Ratchet could operate on a hologram, which was more optical illusion than real. Ratchet had promised it was a low-risk surgery, but sitting in the waiting room all alone, Sam was still terrified that the surgery would end, and he would still be alone.

            He worried for the next three hours, silence broken only occasionally by a nurse coming into the room to reassure him that all was well. When Ratchet was finally the one to come through the door, Sam leapt to his feet.

            “How’s-”

            “Bee is absolutely fine. Everything went well. He’s still asleep, but he’ll wake up shortly.” Ratchet joined Sam at the row of chairs, lowering himself into one and beckoning Sam to sit back down. “He’s going to be a little nervous,” Ratchet said, and Sam was instantly on high alert again.

            “Why, is something wrong?”

            “No, everything is fine. But Sam, let me put it this way. Did you know that when Bee is able to speak, he’s very talkative? What his sense of humour is really like? How often he initiates conversations with friends or with strangers?” Ratchet asked it gently, and Sam shook his head no. He’d never thought to wonder about those things, he realized, embarrassed. How could he not want to know if Bee was talkative? He’d just… he accepted Bee as he was, completed image before him. He’d never known a Bee who could speak, thought Bee had just… always been that way.

            “I don’t even know what his voice actually sounds like,” Sam mumbled, dropping his head into his hands. Faced with an entirely new facet of Bee, it felt like everything he already knew was suddenly… smaller. Instead of knowing the entirety, he suddenly only knew _some._ All he’d heard had been mangled versions of Bee, nothing like what he must really sound like.

            “Bee’s just nervous because it feels like part of him is new to you, that’s all,” Ratchet said, squeezing Sam’s shoulder. “Just be understanding that he has a bit to adapt to. You’ll both be fine.”

            The wait for Bee to wake up was agonizing, and Sam spent it pacing around the waiting room, suddenly unable to sit still. When Ratchet finally came back for him – an hour or four days or ten years later – Sam nearly tripped over his own feet in his haste to follow Ratchet down the hallway, to Bee.

            Would he be able to recognize Bee’s voice? What if it didn’t feel like _Bee?_ He didn’t want to have his surprise hurt Bee, because _oh,_ how Bee looked when hurt – his amber eyes filling with misery and confusion, like he’d misunderstood everything that had happened, and couldn’t figure out why it was happening to him. Sam didn’t want Bee to get that look on his face, when he realized Sam didn’t know him by voice alone.            

            Bee slept in a hospital bed, pristine bandage on his neck. Sam tried to keep quiet as he rushed over, stilled at the side of the bed, nothing more he could hurry. Bee was still asleep, and Sam sank into the nearby chair, reaching to take Bee’s hand and stopping when he saw the IV on the back of it. He compromised by stroking his fingertips over Bee’s hand instead.

            “Please be alright,” he whispered, although Bee was, right in front of him and perfectly fine. “I don’t know your voice, but I know you, Bee.”

            It was a few more minutes before Bee opened his eyes, blinking sleepily at Sam. He smiled, turned his hand to squeeze Sam’s fingers.

            “Hey,” Bee whispered, and there was no voice there just yet, but for once, Bee wasn’t wincing in pain. Bee smiled at him, and how had Sam ever thought losing or gaining a voice could take away how he knew Bee? Sam knew him; nothing Bee lost or gained could change who he was.

            “Hey, Bee,” Sam whispered back.

\--

            Ironhide drove way too fast for Sam’s comfort. He’d asked for a ride to the other end of the city, so he could run into the college and drop off a term paper. The way over had been fast; the way back was proving to be even faster. He’d thought they were just going straight back, but an event in the city had drawn more traffic than usual; the few minutes they were forced to slow down to a crawl were a welcome reprise, at least until Ironhide figured out an alternate path and roared off again.

            “Where are you going?” Sam asked, and Ironhide laughed.

            “Don’t worry! We’re just taking the long way around, it’ll be faster.”

            “You _cannot off-road in a city,”_ Sam insisted, a very familiar and pointless lesson by now. Ironhide had always driven impulsively, and had been delighted to find out that off-roading was an actual sport. Not the way he did it, Sam kept trying to tell him, but Ironhide wouldn’t hear of it.

            They were following the perimeter fence – at warp-speed, as usual – when Ironhide slowed suddenly, just past the hanger.   

            “What, traffic?” Sam asked sarcastically, looking around. It was empty; they weren’t actually on a road, just driving through the dry field. He saw then what must have made Ironhide stop; Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were a ways ahead of them, facing away, working on the security tower with tools and lasers. He could just hear them, when he cracked the window a bit; they were talking in Cybertronian, something the Bots didn’t do often around the humans. Sam had once asked why, and Ratchet had told him “I think it makes humans feel like we’re very _other,_ and we don’t want to alienate them. We’re humanoid, can communicate with them, have personalities – it all comforts people. Cybertronian doesn’t sound human at all, and it makes them remember we’re not quite like them.”

            Sam could see what he meant; it was a language full of static and noises, and, just like Ratchet had said, reminded him that they were mechanical beings. They didn’t use it often around him; when they did, though, he was amused to note that it was always for gossip. Whenever he could beg a translation from a nearby bot, they were always talking about another Bot. That, Sam had thought, felt very human to him.

            “What’re they saying?”

            “I hate to interrupt,” Ironhide demurred.

            “Oh, come on.”

            “Let’s see…” He couldn’t resist for long, Sam knew his politeness was miniscule when faced with curiosity. “Sunstreaker says that if he’d put up a fight, he’d have died and not just been deactivated, and Optimus was supposed to keep his promise…” he translated in real-time. “Sideswipe wants to -  well, that’s violent. Sunstreaker is telling him to be civil, and at least he’s back now.”

            There was the sound of something metal falling, and Sam could hear them laugh.

            “Sunstreaker’s talking about how much he likes the human holos because they’re unobtrusive… hmm… yeah, we should get going, I do _not_ need to know what they want to do to each other.”  Sam snickered, put on the parking brake to make a point. “Yeah… more stuff we don’t need to know… my ears will never be the same…” After a moment, he went quiet, even as they continued.

            “What?” Sam prompted.

            “They’re talking about you and Bumblebee,” Ironhide said reluctantly. “They’re wondering if there are any parallels.”

            “Oh.” Sam fell silent. “We have to go pick up Bee.” He didn’t want to hear any more; without knowing their full story, it seemed, he wouldn’t be able to know his own, and he just didn’t want to find out they were similar.

When they got to the medical center, Bee was released with strict instructions to rest and not work for at least a few days. Bee remained in his holo form, climbing into the truck backseat with Sam and tilting his head to Sam’s shoulder.

“Where to, sir?” Ironhide asked sarcastically, when they both got into the backseat instead of anyone staying up front. He started driving towards Sam’s building, and Bee looked up at Sam quizzically.

“To my place,” Sam said, “right? I didn’t think your room at the hanger was as comfortable?” Ratchet had implied that Bee would be in this form for a while, for the healing process, after all. The hanger felt like a dorm, and was definitely not human-sized.

“Is that okay?” Bee whispered. He looked listless from exhaustion, and the insecurity just made him look more weary. Sam kissed Bee’s forehead, didn’t know how to convey to Bee how much he mattered, how welcome he was everywhere that was Sam’s – his arms, his apartment, his life.

“Of course,” Sam tucked Bee closer against his side, Bee closing his eyes and sighing contentedly. “You’re mine, Bee. You stay with me.”

            “Sam,” Bee whispered, and he hadn’t been able to do that before, when he had to use the radio to speak, when he couldn’t say Sam’s name in his own voice. “Sam, Sam, Sam.”

\---

            The next morning, Sam woke up and something felt different. He lay under the light comforter, Bee asleep with his head on Sam’s chest. Sam tried to take stock of the situation, but still nothing stood out that would explain his strange feeling.

            Late morning sunshine. Silence and no Decepticon attacks. Warm bed. Bee deeply asleep –

            Bee whined when Sam flinched, holding on to Sam tighter. He’d been weak and sleepy after the surgery and Sam had, without thinking, treated him like a human and tucked him into bed, forgetting that Bee had to have a Bot form elsewhere that actually needed to recharge, not this holographic extension of it.

            “Bee…?” Sam ventured, “what are you doing?”

            Bee blinked sleepily up at him. “What?” he whispered, still no voice to it.

            “Were you… sleeping? Actually?” he asked, and Bee nodded. “Since _when?”_

            Bee frowned in confusion. “I woke up for a little around three, but that’s it. Ironhide is guarding right now,” he added, never able to forget his guardian duty, perking up at the recitation, “everything’s safe. He’ll be there until I can replace him.” Guardian duties satisfied and no imminent danger in the room, Bee’s actions turned tired. He sunk his head back to Sam’s chest, closed his eyes.

            “You’ve never slept before.”

            “I’m sure I have,” Bee whispered, and Sam may have not known how Bee sounded when he lied, but he knew the look that accompanied a silent lie. Bee definitely had it on his face.

            “No, you haven’t. I mean, I don’t know if a holo _can_ sleep,” Sam considered, abruptly unsure again. What did he know about the holo program, anyways? They probably _could,_ but never chose to, so Bee sleeping now just felt strange. “Where’s your like, car form?”

            “The hanger,” Bee replied, but Sam had driven by there yesterday, and had seen no Camaro.

            Something was different, Sam knew it. Something nagging at him. Bee again didn’t look like a holo, looked normal. The slightly feverish temperature. The little bump on his ear that Sam’s mother would have called a fairy bite. An exceptionally tiny chip in his front tooth. The soft stubble on his face a little more than last night. _You’re not perfect anymore,_ Sam couldn’t say, but it was true.

            “You’re different,” Sam said. Bee – he looked so tired, so defeated and weary, and like he could cry at any moment. Sam sighed, pressed a kiss to Bee’s forehead. “Go back to sleep,” he murmured.

Sam held off on the questions. He waited for two more days, just fussed over Bee until he was healthy again and treated him gently, and didn’t ask questions. And then, when he went to meet Bee after the final post-op checkup, Bee looked different again.

It was his smile that clued Sam in. Bee beamed at him when reporting the all-clear from Ratchet, and his smile was absolutely perfect. Silver-screen flawless, no longer sweetly imperfect like it had been the other morning.

“What’s going on?” Sam asked abruptly. Bee tilted his head in a question. “There’s just… one thing I don’t get,” Sam didn’t know if it was relevant, but the thought had appeared in his mind like it had been waiting to be uncovered, and he wasn’t sure where else to go. “I know the holo’s are really advanced, but human enough to do surgery on? It’s still just a projection, isn’t it?”

A guilty look flashed across Bee’s face. And Sam, he knew the entire range of those looks. He knew “just destroyed your garage again” and “there’s a hole in the wall from someone’s cannons” and even “lied about everything for months.” But this look – there was something else in it. Shame, he thought.

“Please,” Sam pleaded. Bee scuffed the ground with the toe of his sneaker, eyes down.

“Ratchet didn’t operate on my holo form.”

“But it wasn’t you as a Bot, so… what?”

“He operated on my human form,” Bee was already whispering, now even quieter.

“Human? What, like a different program?” he guessed, but Bee shook his head no.

“I have a third alternate form.” At Sam’s blank stare, Bee kept going. “I can be a holo like the others, but I can have a human form, too.”

 _“How?”_ was all Sam could manage. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be possible for an Autobot to turn into a human, they weren’t the same. They just – weren’t. No matter how Sam and Bee tried to pretend, _they were different._

            Bee looked at him, like he was memorizing Sam’s face, like he knew this was the last moment before everything changed. He looked like he’d known it was coming, and his heart was breaking, because here it was.

            “I used to be human.”


	11. Chapter 11

Time had stopped for Bumblebee, and it seemed to be stopping again. Sam’s whole world was motionless, in the wake of Bee disappearing from sight.

            “I’m sorry,” Bee had whispered, and then vanished, holo winking out of existence. Sam couldn’t understand. He didn’t have any questions, because the words didn’t make sense, left no weak spots that could be probed into with questions. It felt like his brain had short circuited, in the most literal sense: starting at a problem and expecting to go through the steps that would take him back to it with a solution in hand, and then abruptly, there was _this,_ and Sam was thrown too-fast back to the problem. It wasn’t taking the easiest route, it was taking the fastest, no matter the consequences. Why did things feel strange? Suddenly, shockingly: Bee used to be human.

            But Ratchet would know, Sam’s frazzled mind eventually offered up, Ratchet had to know. He’d just been in the hospital, so would probably have dissolved his holo and was in the Autobot half of the medical center. Sam took off running around the hospital towards the other entrance; he suddenly couldn’t understand living this long without having the answers he now needed, not even knowing he needed them. How could Bee be human – was now, used to be, when did he stop, _how?_ What did this explain?

Sam sprinted down the sidewalk, trying to avoid the people walking by and barely remembering to halt at driveways. By the time he reached the other side, he was painfully out of breath.

            “Ratchet!” he called into the empty room, holding his side and panting. The Bot came into view from around a huge doorway.

            “Sam, are you alright?”

            “Bee just – told me something crazy, and I –” when Ratchet held out a hand, Sam climbed onto it with relief, sinking down in his palm as Ratchet held him up to eye level.

            “I expect you have questions.”

            “Bee used to be _human?”_ His exhaustion fading, it was clear that his anxiously high heart rate wasn’t from the sprint. He was just – just scared, of what this could mean.

            “Did you notice that Bumblebee is different than the rest of us?” Ratchet asked, and Sam shook his head no vehemently.

            “No! He isn’t!”

            “He does have his differences. He’s smaller, slightly more fragile. He could adapt to Earth much quicker, both mentally and physically. And, with our millions of years of technological advancements, I couldn’t fix something as simple as his voice mod. There was a way to bring Optimus back to life, but we couldn’t fix Bumblebee’s voice until now.” Sam could only stare. “He is not exactly like other Autobots.”

            “What difference does he have? He said he used to be human, what does that _mean?_ You can’t change species, Ratchet!” Sam nearly pleaded. It was – it was terrifying, it meant so many things that Sam couldn’t grasp them all, it made some make more sense but others less. “You’re born a human, you stay one, that has to be true.”

            “He wasn’t a human for long, Sam. He wasn’t born a human, but he was supposed to be. Should I tell you, or should Bumblebee?”

            “He can’t talk yet,” Sam muttered, “and I doubt he’ll talk about it.” Bee hadn’t, after all¸ brought it up himself and might never have.

            “Very well then,” Ratchet didn’t comment on the implications of Sam’s answer. “Well, what you would think of as a long time ago, I was training to become an expert medic, under the direction of an Autobot named Inlay. He was one of the best medics Cybertron had probably ever seen, and one of the few who could train a medic to our most advanced levels.

            We had come to Earth as part of an exploration team. Back when we had more resources, the Cybertronians were very interested in life on other plants, and this was not the first exploratory mission. We had accompanied the team because after Earth, they were visiting a planet with extremely advanced medical technology. But on Earth, there was an accident – a Decepticon followed us and attacked, and in the midst of this, two humans we hadn’t seen were badly injured.” Even now, even hundreds of years later, Ratchet sounded devastated, disappointed in himself for being unable to prevent it, and the Autobots taught Sam the same lesson over and over: no matter how much loss was experienced, more would still be mourned. “Inlay tried to save them. The man died, the woman about to follow, but when Inlay heard her crying about her unborn baby –”

            Ratchet paused, and then, from a small speaker, a woman’s voice issued.

            “No, not my baby,” she sobbed, “it hasn’t even gotten to live yet, God, please save my baby –” She pleaded with anyone who could hear her; certainly wouldn’t have thought beings from another planet would be the ones to hear her.

            “She was still pregnant with her baby,” Ratchet said, “Inlay knew of an old, old procedure that few Autobots knew. He never had the chance to teach me.”

            Another voice issued from the speaker. “It’s one of our oldest procedures,” a deep voice said, metered with calmness, “During an ancient and terrible war that was not only our own. When other planets were being destroyed, but a galaxy at war meant strange species would never be trusted on our home planet. The only way to save casualties of other planets was to turn them into Autobots, so they could live on Cybertron in peace.”

            There was indistinct sound in the background, the Autobot working with tools of some kind. And then, Ratchet’s voice, younger. “Is that fair?” Ratchet asked, in the recording. “Fair to the child?”

            “This way, he will have a chance to live. He will have nothing to miss.” Some metal clanked quietly. “It’s rudimentary for now, but his body will adapt and become more like us.”

            “Like?”

            “Perhaps not exactly the same, but very close.”

            The sound file snapped off.

            “He created a metal body,” Ratchet explained, “and he drew the – the concept of the child into a shard of a spark. I still could not explain how, but it took hours of inducing some kind of magnetism to the spark on a biological level of its chemical structure – somehow, he understood how the inanimate could have life within it, and it was ancient knowledge, from the very birth of our species. He was able to draw the child’s life to the spark, and then, the human baby was born as an Autobot.”

What would the baby’s mother have thought, Sam wondered, if she’d known? Would she have felt like her prayers were answered?

“It took a few more hours, the most nerve-wracking I ever spent, but then, we knew it had worked,” Ratchet said. Another sound clip played.

“At last,” Inlay’s voice, considerably lighter, “the new little one.” A metallic sound was heard, like a buzzing. The young Ratchet laughed with relief.

“He’s like a little bumblebee. He even thinks he can fly.” There was a clanking, and a wail rose up, sounding distinctly human.

“See, now, how his bot form changes its chemical makeup, and allows him to become human? The parts are replaced by their human counterparts. It’s not like using the same parts to shift into another form; each takes on its actual counterpart. His spark is merged with his human heart, giving him the ability to change, not just rearrange. Oh, poor thing,” Inlay chuckled, “can’t crawl very well, can he? See, there he goes, changing back again.”

“What happened to Bee after that?” Sam asked, trying to picture Bee as a baby, a tiny Bot. “Who took him?”

The sound clip that answered him was heartening. “Who will keep him?” Ratchet asked, sounding even younger.

“Oh, we’ll find a nice family,” Inlay said; Sam could hear the teasing in his voice that Ratchet of back then must not have.

“No! I mean – I’m sure I could – I’d like to –”

And then, a baby cooing – Bee.

“You raised him,” Sam said, finally smiled. “From a baby.”

“I couldn’t let him go,” Ratchet confirmed, “I know I did not do it myself, but I was there and he felt like, well. Like mine. So you see, he was never born human, but he was intended to be.”

“I can’t believe you guys know how to switch species.”

“No one does anymore,” Ratchet said mournfully, “it died with Inlay. He meant to teach me, but was killed in battle shortly afterwards. It wasn’t so much a species switch for Bee; he was able to retain the body he would have had, in alternate form. He aged as a Bot, which is what caused the vocal problem. He was never able to truly mature as a human in that respect, and his human body caused the disconnect. Something was going to get caught in between, and he’s lucky it was just his voice.” Ratchet paused, caught sight of the mystified look on Sam’s face. “It’s one of the mysteries of the Allspark.”

Sam wondered if Bee had heard the voice files, the only records of Bee’s life as a human. He wondered if Bee had heard his mother’s voice, on the day he was – what? Born? Changed, stolen, saved?

“Has he heard all that?” Sam asked. Ratchet nodded.

“When I first told him, it… it upset him, a great deal.”

What he was saying, Sam realized, was that Bee had been devastated to find out why he wasn’t normal, that he’d already lost something so important and hadn’t even remembered it. Maybe he’d felt lost, unmoored, overwhelmed by everything that could have been. How could Bee not have told Sam about this? It was – it was defining.

“He’s still an Autobot,” Ratchet said, “but he is different.”

“But he’s human.”

“Sometimes,” Ratchet said softly, “I always worried being both would make Bee feel like he was truly neither.”

Sam felt like the truest version of himself when he was with Bee; he wondered if Bee felt that too, if being together made him feel like it didn’t matter whether he was a human or a Bot. If, when they were together, Bee felt like he was being seen for who he truly was, like it didn’t matter at all what form that took – just himself, only and entirely this.

\--

            Sam had all-but forgotten about his classes at the university lately. The week following his discovery about Bumblebee found Sam in his military history class. It had been a week he’d jammed with school, makeup work, and little else, a week without confrontation, a week without explanation, a week without Bee. It wasn’t that Sam was avoiding him; he thought, maybe, it was the other way around.

            “-as illustrated on page fifteen,” he heard, followed by the sound of flipping pages. Though Sam had been gazing at the board, chin in hand, he hadn’t been following and scrambled to catch up, turning pages in his book. He was seven pages behind, somehow. And he was about to fall farther behind, because wedged between the pages of his book was an unfamiliar scrap of paper.

            _I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,_ it read, in the familiar, blocky handwriting. Sam was suddenly picturing Bee learning to write in an old schoolhouse, although nothing about the picture was accurate. Bee had never been living a human life on Earth; he was surely older than that, might not have learned to write at all. Sam didn’t know. He didn’t know _anything,_ it felt like.

            It wasn’t the first note from Bee. Though Sam hadn’t seen him in a week, Bee had been around, somehow; every note read the same thing. He’d found one on his kitchen counter, on the coffee table, in his backpack, in the pocket of his jacket, and – Sam lifted his shoe to check – on the bottom of his shoe. It was like Bee was overflowing with the desire to tell Sam, without actually wanting to talk to him at all.

            And Sam understood, in a way. He knew Bee was sorry for – not lying, exactly, but keeping it from him. But it was just another instance of Bee keeping something important from Sam, and as the days dragged on in separate silence, Sam didn’t know if he was growing more hurt or angry. He hadn’t seen Bee, had no idea where Bee was spending his time, what he was doing. One thing Sam knew, though, was that Bee was definitely able to talk now, and Sam was missing it.

            “Sam,” Tanner whispered from the desk beside his, “what’re you doing?” Admittedly, Sam was still staring at his shoe, ankle propped on his other knee under the des.

            “Nothing much, you?” He dropped his foot back to the floor. Tanner grinned.

            “Also nothing.”

            Tanner had laid off his flirting, but even talking to him felt wrong. Just because – because with as the one thing Sam had never really been able to do with Bee. And now that Bee finally, finally could, Sam was talking to someone else.

            Still, there was an element to his friendship with Tanner that Sam craved: Tanner trusted him. With ridiculous secrets, with heavy confessions, and Tanner sought him out, felt safe in telling him, and Sam felt trusted. He knew Tanner was the mastermind behind some of the best pranks pulled on Lennox on record – the latest being parking a non-Autobot truck in the space where Ironhide usually waited for him, and rigging it with a speaker so a soldier who mimicked Ironhide with uncanny accuracy could speak to Lennox, and proceed to go into hysterics over ridiculous gossip, making Lennox think Ironhide had absolutely lost his mind. But Sam also knew who Tanner had kissed and who had kissed him, who Tanner found attractive but had no chance with. He knew Tanner had joined the military right out of high school and that his mother had sobbed and forbidden him to go, and when he went anyways, told him things that he still couldn’t get out of his head. Sam even knew what she’d said: _you’re going to die for a cause that didn’t even need you,_ the worst thing anyone had ever said to Tanner. Sam knew Tanner’s younger brother didn’t love that Tanner was gay, had looked up to Tanner all his life and maybe did so a little less now. He knew Tanner’s older sister had just been thrilled he felt safe enough to tell her, and that Tanner went home to her family on holidays now. Sam knew everything about Tanner, and had he ever felt that, about Bee? He’d thought Bee trusted him, but there had never been a time where he thought _I know everything about him._ Sam _wanted_ to be Bumblebee’s safe place.

            And Bee was a human. It changed things; it wasn’t that things weren’t _real,_ when he thought he was dating the holo version of Bee. It was real, but it was… outside of real. Was that why Bee hadn’t told him? Because being human made it feel _real,_ because he didn’t flicker in and out of existence in that form, because he wasn’t always also a towering metal Bot.

            And if it was real – so was the terrible reality of it. If things suddenly felt more possible, then it brought out their insurmountable obstacles, their inevitable heartbreaks. If this was real, and Bee were to love Sam without reservation, without the distancing safety afforded by being an Autobot –

            Humans could only live so long. And Bee, he wasn’t human _enough_ to not outlive Sam by centuries, to spend more time missing Sam than they’d ever have together. He would mourn not as a human but as an Autobot: alone with a perfect memory of everything he’d lost, for centuries.

\--

            It was amazing, that the stars were visible at all. As Sam stood by the railing of his apartment building’s rooftop garden, he could look up, and see stars. The city glowed with light, illumination pouring from its very heart, but even so, the faintest shine of stars dotted the black sky above. Sam wondered if it was the same everywhere; different constellations on other planets, but he thought stars looked the same everywhere. And if Bee had stayed human, it would have been the exact same as this one – hundreds of years ago, and Bee would have seen exactly this.

            If Bee had stayed human – he’d have stayed back in whatever century that was. He’d have lived in another fraction of time and he would have stayed there and he would have died there. Sam never would have known him. He gazed up at the stars, tried to imagine what would have happened if Bee had ever gotten the chance to do the same, as a human.

            Sam would have ended up with an old car that stayed a car. He would have been studying and working with people who weren’t composed of light and advanced projection. He would have fewer scars and seen many, many fewer people die. He’d have never met Bumblebee. Would he have known who he was missing? Sam felt that, somehow, he would have known.

            His ringing phone distracted him, and he checked to see who it was before answering – or, rather, wasn’t. His last call had been from his mother a few days ago, and had lasted well over two hours, full of very detailed updates and questions like _what’s your floorplan like?_ and _your father wants to know if he can make your room into his – what did he call it? Man hovel?_ and had made Sam miss her very much.

            “Mikaela!” he answered, suddenly surprised that he’d gone so long without talking to her. It abruptly felt foreign, after spending so long together.

            “Hey, Sam,” she said, voice warm. “Just wanted to check in on you.”

            She’d already been filled in about the city, which she’d been curious about since the Bots started constructing their portion of it. “And how’re you and Bee?” she asked afterwards, and before he could ask if she meant like, hum and Bee, or him and also, Bee, she clarified, “like, youandBee.”

            She’d been updated on the holo program, on their odd, tentative dating, and Sam hadn’t planned on trying to put this latest twist into words, but found himself saying, “he’s… partly human. And he never told me.” He gave her the most basic summary he could, and afterwards, she was quiet for a while.

            “It’s not that he didn’t trust you,” she said, “I know it. He was probably just scared about what it would mean, and if it would change things. Sam, Bee’s never been able to really talk to you. Literally, I mean. I bet it’s hard to know how to talk about something scary when you haven’t even been able to _talk.”_

            “I guess,” Sam admitted. It was like asking Bee to learn something new, because Bee _wasn’t_ used to bringing things up with Sam – he’d never been able to. Their friendship had been built on Bee responding to Sam with borrowed sounds. Bee hadn’t been able to easily tell him anything, so maybe it would take him time to learn how that felt.

            After they’d said goodbye, Sam propped his elbows on the railing, looking down at the street below. There were fewer cars by now, and the ones driving by were brief winks of light in the dark. He just stood there for a while, thought about the enormous number of things that had to happen for him to end up right there at that moment in time: the car lot, the Autobots, his grandfather choosing the Arctic and his mother falling for that specific man’s great-grandson, the destruction of Cybertron, telling Mikaela _don’t you want to be able to say you had the guts to get in the car?_ Whatever he’d imagined, it wasn’t this; _the curse of knowledge,_ he’d learned during his very brief time in psychology class, was the inability to un-know something, and now he was unable to picture what he must have thought would unfold from that night. He knew too much, now, knew exactly how things happened and couldn’t go back to the person he was before, know only what he’d known then.

            “Sam,” he heard, and didn’t turn at the voice, didn’t feel like talking to – who, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Ironhide? Whoever it was. The three Bots sounded similar when he was trying not to hear, the slight differences in deepness easy to block out when he wanted to just _not deal_ with anything. “Please, Sam…”

            That made it harder to guess; Ironhide didn’t know how to be polite, Sideswipe didn’t know how to be gentle, Sunstreaker didn’t know how to be hesitant.

            It was Bumblebee. He stood a short ways from Sam, shoulders slumped and eyes downcast. “You couldn’t tell it was me,” he mumbled, half to himself. “Sam – I get why you’re mad, but… please, can you not be?” Bee could have said that and Sam would have known _exactly_ who it was. Who else would ask like this – asking for something ridiculous but simple. He was sweet, and none of the older, more mature Bots would have asked for this: _can you please not be mad at me?_

            “I didn’t tell you,” Bee went on, quiet, and Sam couldn’t stop listening. Voices were so hard to describe, but he adored this one, low but not quite so deep, a little hoarse. “I don’t know why, I just didn’t want to put so much on you. I didn’t know if it mattered.”

            Sam just looked at him. He didn’t know either, when it became important, and why. He just – couldn’t believe he hadn’t known. It felt important for reasons he couldn’t verbalize other than a _knowing._

            “I’m still _me,”_ Bee pleaded, at Sam’s silence, “even before you knew it, I was the same. I didn’t know how to explain all of this to you – all about us, but then also about me, because I’m not _like_ them. I just – I wanted to be like them, I wanted to not be one extra strange thing you’d have to understand.” He blew out a slow breath, crossed his arms over his chest protectively. He was definitely human, Sam could see. He wasn’t glowing, ethereally beautiful; he looked like – like what he was. A hurt, apologizing man with red-rimmed eyes and downturned lips, still beautiful, but like someone Sam could reach out and touch, someone he could have found on this planet.

            “Nothing about me changes,” Bee added softly, “I’m always the same. No matter what I am, what I feel about you never changes.”

            “I know that,” Sam finally found his voice. The sudden interjection made Bee fall absolutely silent and stay that way. “But… I just want you to trust me. You could tell me things, Bee.”

            “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” Bee said, even quieter than before, “I just don’t want to scare you away.” Sam was about to protest, but the words died on his lips. Bee didn’t trust him not to run away, maybe, but he wasn’t wrong. This very well could have scared Sam away, because things had suddenly felt so real, and he would be lying if he said part of him hadn’t been almost too terrified to go on.   
            But – it had to be scarier for Bee. If it was real, Bee had to be terrified, because years and years after Sam was gone, Bee would still remember this, the heart he’d held and lost.

            Sam reached for him and Bee came easily, with a tiny sigh of relief. “Missed you last week,” Sam murmured, couldn’t be mad, not when he wanted to fill their time together with this: holding Bee, comforting him, never being apart. “I saw your apologies.”

            “I just wanted you to know.” Bee turned his face into Sam’s neck. “Like your shoe?”

            “Ridiculous.”

            “Now when you see it, you can think of me.”

            “I think about you anyways.”

            “You do?” Bee’s eyes were bright, and Sam smiled.

            “I think about you all the time! That’s the dumbest question I’ve ever heard, Bee. Even worse than that one time Miles asked if you were possessed.”

            Bee threw his head back and laughed, and Sam reveled in the sound he’d never heard before; he wanted to live here, in this starlit moment, Bee laughing for the first time and held in Sam’s arms, never moving past this. Beyond this were moments apart and, farther still but inevitable, the future they couldn’t share. If Sam could stay here, he could breathe in the sound of Bee laughing and kiss him forever, and neither of them would ever be alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully this makes more logical sense than the first time around! because my god, they would stumble across humans and go "WELL, YOU'RE AN AUTOBOT NOW, THE BEST WAY TO BE SWORN TO SECRECY IS TO SPECIES-KIDNAP YOU" 
> 
> and I couldn’t resist the short circuit analogy haha one of the strangest developments over the past decade (!!!) is, after all, the fact that I’ve become an electrician. if i could only go back and tell myself THAT. 
> 
> LOVE YOU GUYS


	12. Chapter 12

Sam knew, logically, that Bee had lost a lot, when he lost his voice. From an objective standpoint, it was obvious, what a voice meant. But Bee – Sam knew now, the enormity of what Bee had lost and now regained.

            He should have guessed but never tried; and was it a return to Bee’s normal state? Or a newfound one, a celebration of his re-found ability to speak, the opposite extreme after living the other for so long? Bumblebee was every kind of sound someone with a voice could be: talkative, musical. He loved talking to himself, to every inanimate object, sometimes so fiercely Sam was fooled into thinking someone else was there; he chattered to the birds that came to the birdfeeder out on the bedroom balcony, commiserated with the dying succulent that lived beside the kitchen sink. He sang to himself constantly, the same parts of songs over and over, sometimes incorrectly, or with a new tempo or key. It was another way for Bee to be himself: aloud.

            Blinking in the morning sunlight, Sam pulled the blankets back up, yawning. Bee had woken up earlier, even though he’d fallen asleep later and woken up more often during the night. The pattern had been going on for a while, Bee’s inability to sleep; it was very human of him.

            Sam left the warmth of the bed to follow the faint sound of Bee’s voice; he found Bee in the kitchen, scowling at the microwave. The glowing numerals on its screen read _3:34,_ and given Bee’s muttered threats, not the time he’d wanted it to read.

            “You’re the worst,” he was telling it seriously, holding down the time button and trying again.

            “Hey, Bee,” Sam yawned, reached around him for the coffee pot.

            “Did I wake you up?” Bee paused in his resetting, and it reverted back to 3:34.

            “Don’t worry about it,” Sam said, although he knew it was pointless, that Bee would always worry. “But you could worry about yourself a little more, okay? Your not sleeping worries me.” He reached into the refrigerator for creamer, but looked over his shoulder at Bee. “And don’t tell me you recharge and not sleep, because I can tell when you’re a holo and when you’re not.” This earned him a surprised look from Bee.

            “You can?”    

            “Yeah, it’s like one’s you, and the holo is if someone was describing you but not with all the specifics.” This made Bee beam at him. “So what’re you up to today?”

            Bee made a thoughtful humming sound. “I have to go to the mechanics building for a bit. You’re skipping your history class.”

            “Oh, am I? How come?”

            “Because I want you to.” Bee finally succeeded in getting the right time on the microwave: 8:17.

            “And why do you want me to?”

            “Because I _want_ you to,” Bee insisted, turning from the microwave and draping his arms over Sam’s shoulders, leaning in to nose at his cheek. Sam grinned at the insistence.

            “So no asking why?” he said, because he knew it would make Bee kiss him to get him to stop asking. Sam managed to set his coffee cup down before Bee was fully in his arms, leaning in to kiss him, hands moving restlessly across Sam’s chest and over his arms.

“I don’t have to be at the mechanics building for an hour,” Bee informed him, dipping his head to kiss Sam’s neck.

“Have I told you,” Sam managed, before Bee could blur his thought process completely, “that you’re the best boyfriend ever?”

            “I’m your only, ever,” Bee corrected cheerfully, eyes bright.

            “Yeah,” Sam groaned at Bee’s whispering touch, “and I’m keeping it that way.”

\--

It felt like there was always a holiday celebration going on at the rec center. Now that it was September, the Fourth of July decorations had finally come down, but in their place, a crop of Christmas decorations had sprouted. Sam peered into the lounge and saw, once again, a collection of ladders and decorations.

“You guys do know there are holidays in between July Fourth and Christmas, right?” he headed over to where Lennox was supervising the hanging of a garland across the windows. For a guy who was constantly busy with highly classified operations, he sure seemed to head a lot of decorating committees.

“What are we going to do, pumpkins?” Lennox shook his head. “Trust me, there’s a reason I banned jack-o-lantern carving contests around here. The fewer susceptible pumpkins lying around, the better.”

“You’ve never _seen_ so many dicks on pumpkins,” Epps supplied from above their heads. “But I do love Halloween! My baby girls dress up as princesses every year.”

“Yeah, and you shed glitter for weeks,” Lennox snickered. Epps tried, unsuccessfully, to kick him in the head. “I’m lucky my kiddo always wants to be like, a hot dog or a popsicle. This year she wants to be a sushi roll.”

“Besides, this isn’t our fault,” Epps added, sweeping an arm out to indicate the Christmas that was unfolding across the busy room.

“Yeah? Who do I have to thank for it?” Sam asked.

“Well, Tanner heads up the mistletoe maniacs,” Lennox pointed to where someone teetered atop a ladder.

“So that’s why did this,” another voice made Sam turn, to see Sideswipe’s holo.

“Why, problems?” Lennox laughed.

“Oh, no problems,” Sideswipe rolled his eyes. “Just about seven girls flinging themselves at me. Plus all the problems that caused me later.”

“Jealous?” Sam guessed, knowing Sunstreaker must have walked in on at least one of those attempted kisses.

“I’ll make it up to him somehow. So if we both vanish for a few hours-”

“Nothing short of a global meltdown would make me come looking for you,” Sam vowed. Sideswipe laughed.

            The crash from the other room concerned no one but Sam. Lennox and Epps seemed used to it, and Sideswipe didn’t bother with so much as a glance, so Sam trooped over to see if anything had broken. The ladder lay on its side, and once again, Tanner was the one it had pitched itself over onto. Judging by the pout on his face as he disentangled himself, the only thing hurt was his pride.

            “You okay?” Sam asked, and Tanner grinned at him.

            “It’s started throwing itself at me when I try to move it, but other than that, I’m fine.” He looked over Sam’s shoulder to loudly add, in the direction of his unresponsive captain, “no need to worry about me or anything!”

            “Decepticons don’t tend to be ladders,” Sideswipe shrugged, “you’ll live.” He added, under his breath, “until I teach them to be ladders.” Tanner just sighed, had long since resigned himself to the fact that a few Bots had it out for him after his various faux-pas, and looked back to Sam.

            “Glad at least one person cares that I don’t kill myself trying to decorate,” Tanner fiddled with the roll of tape in his hands, grinned. “And it sure isn’t Sideswipe.”

 "What exactly was so important that you decided to risk your neck, anyways?" Sam asked, then, remembering Lennox's reference to Tanner, really wished he hadn't.

"What else?" He pointed up, and Sam saw the mistletoe Tanner had managed to affix to the doorway above them. Sam knew what that meant. Before he could so much as think of a way to protest, Tanner had leaned in and given him a quick, sweet kiss. Sam about jumped out of his skin when, the second the swift kiss ended, he felt a hand at his back.

“Hey,” Sam knew that voice, now.

“Hi, Bee,” the bad timing was astounding. Sunstreaker was going to have competition for the Bot most irritated by the mistletoe.

“Tanner,” Bee kept his hand at Sam’s back, gave a short nod in greeting, “heard you have history together, too.” Skipping the class made more sense to Sam, then. Bee was possessive in a forlorn, hopeful way; he didn’t want Tanner to have the chance.

“Yup,” Tanner said, “can’t say it’s my favorite subject. I’m not great at the memorization.”

“Uh-huh.” Bee looked pointedly at the mistletoe.

“Oh, we decided to decorate for Christmas early,” Tanner said cheerily.

            “I see that.” Bee was trying to sound polite, and could managed restrained at best. “You could refrain from using it as an excuse to kiss my boyfriend,” he said, and if he was going for nonchalant, he missed it by miles.

            Tanner looked something like shocked; had he known they were dating? It was a weird non-secret secret; they’d told no one, but everyone knew, sort of.

            “How can you, uh, date and all, if he’s human, and you’re not?” he asked, curious.

            “Well, here I am dating him, somehow,” Bee’s voice was flat.

            “I’m just wondering,” Tanner held up his hands in surrender, “I’m new to the whole aliens thing.”

            “Okay,” Sam jumped in before Bee could get more upset, because Bee was beginning to look angry, like starting a fight would be something he’d find perfectly reasonable. “We’re gonna go now, and you can go back to decorating, and no one’s going to do any murdering, if everyone’s okay with that?” Neither of his audience looked particularly sold, but Sam propelled Bee towards the exit anyways. “Bye!” he called over his shoulder.

            “See you later,” Tanner called after them, sounding something between confused and concerned.

            Sam dragged Bee from the room, before anything could escalate. Before the door had even closed behind them, Sam was babbling out an apology. “I’m sorry! He kissed me, and I did _not_ want him to do that. It was the mistletoe, which is stupid, because it’s September, and everyone knows that’s not appropriate mistletoe time, but I’m sorry!” He was babbling like a preschooler – particularly since his defense rested on _he started it_ – but couldn’t make himself stop.

            “It’s okay,” Bee cut in, voice gentle. “I know it wasn’t you.”

            “Oh, good,” Sam breathed a sigh of relief, slumped against the wall in the corridor. So it hadn’t been that kind of jealousy, but – some kind. Maybe a sadder kind, not a lack of faith in Sam but a sorrowful awareness of what Tanner offered that he couldn’t.

            Sam wanted to talk about it, but he was afraid of how his reassurances would sound to Bee. He believed them – he didn’t _need_ a human-all-the-time boyfriend, he didn’t care about normal. He knew that, out loud, it would sound short-sighted, young, like he thought that just love would let them sail past any difficulties.

            And what if it sounded that way because that’s what it _was,_ all those things? Sam knew how he felt now, but he was sometimes afraid to be making this decision for his future self, on behalf of a later Sam who might ache for all he’d given up. But also, maybe if Sam gave it up, he would find himself decades later, thinking _I didn’t have the guts to love him._ Anchored in a normal life, where the galaxy ended at the visible stars, thinking about a being who came from galaxies away to love him, who Sam had been too afraid to hold onto.

            “What?” Bee prompted gently, at Sam’s prolonged silence.

            “Nothing.” How could he ever know what he’d regret more? Would he mourn the loss of a normal life, or an extraordinary one? After all, there had been something in his heart pushing him to keep trying with Mikaela, hadn’t there: hazy images of Sunday mornings, kids that looked a bit like each of them, a home that he’d built. And, when Bumblebee rose up before him, alien and unknown and telling him there were beings coming from beyond the stars, Sam’s heart had leapt to that adventure, too: the vast, unexplored landscape his life could become, beyond dreams, wilder and stranger. That Bee sometimes felt like both made it harder for Sam to feel which he was leaning towards: the way Bee felt like welcoming and home, or the way he felt like infinite, unexplored galaxies Sam had never laid eyes on?

            “Nothing?” Bee smiled; it was tinged with worry.

            “They told me about their pumpkin carving contests, and I’m afraid of what it would have been like,” Sam said, and Bee laughed. Not entirely carefree, but they never could be.

            Bee kissed Sam’s cheek, and frowned at the clock on the wall. “I really have to go. I have more things I have to do.”

            “Am I distracting you?” Sam grinned. “You should go, I’ll catch you later. I can distract you more then, I promise.” Bee gave a familiar little sigh. “There’s no way there’ll be a Decepticon attack between now and tonight,” Sam tried to convince him; he’d been brought to the rec center by Ironhide after Bee had left in the morning, but just before Bee’s arrival, Ironhide had headed out. Bee’s concerned look didn’t lift. “If it makes you feel better, I can go hang out with Ratchet or someone, okay?”

            “Okay. See you.” Bee pressed a swift kiss to Sam’s lips, and his holo vanished. After he’d gone, Sam heard footsteps approach from down the hall.

            “Your boyfriend sort of scares me,” Tanner said amiably, offering a smile. “Should I be worried about getting smothered in my sleep?”

            “Naah, he’s not the murdering type.”

            “Yet,” Tanner sighed, “my bad, man. I don’t mean to start shit.” Sam nodded along, didn’t know how Tanner had missed what was between him and Bee – Bee was pretty hands-on-Sam, all the time – but since Bee was a Bot, maybe Tanner had assumed it wasn’t anything. “So… alien boyfriend, huh? ‘Your planet or mine’ must be harder than picking whose apartment to live together in,” he joked; Sam couldn’t think of a tactful way to ask _did you know his home planet was destroyed?_ “Anyways, I’m gonna finish the decorating, someone has to bring Christmas to this place.”

            Tanner wandered off; Sam stayed motionless for a few moments, thinking about destroyed planets, what it would feel like to lose every familiar place he’d ever known.

            Sam ended up doing a visiting tour of the Autobots, dropping in to see each for a while. The Twins were painting the wall of the Hanger – probably as punishment for having destroyed that very wall – and doing their odd kind of bickering where they actually agreed with each other. They were insisting that beige was an awful color, and lime green would be better; it was probably why they’d chosen to make that wall green, instead of matching all the rest, which Sam assumed wouldn’t go over well once it was seen by everyone else.

            Ironhide, he found in engineering, his holo form sitting before a computer, shoulders hunched in irritation as he kept up a steady rant of less-than-friendly words directed at the computer. He insisted Sam stay and act as a sounding board, although it wasn’t a terribly pleasant position to take up, and Sam soon grew bored and continued on his way.       

            Optimus, Sam skipped; he wasn’t exactly the hang-out-with type of Bot, and was in some important video conference anyways. Sam found Sideswipe and Sunstreaker next instead, in the weaponry development building. Sideswipe was bent over something intricate, but sneaking looks at Sunstreaker. Sunstreaker was talking with Lennox, who must have left the party planning in the semi-capable hands of Tanner or Epps.

            Having found no decent entertainment, Sam grabbed his textbooks and headed to the medical center, the one place that was quiet enough for studying. He found Ratchet in the Bot half, unpacking new supplies he’d ordered.

"I'm beginning to have faith in your species, Sam" Ratchet said, inspecting whatever was in one of the large boxes. Sam sprawled out on top of the gigantic metal table, after being helped up there by Ratchet, opening his textbook before him.

"Why's that?"

"After sending several incorrect pieces and two broken ones, I finally got exactly what I ordered."

"Congratulations." Sam tried to focus on his military history textbook, seeing as he'd ditched class that morning at Bee's sweet insistence.

Half an hour later, his studying was interrupted by the roar of engines outside. A quick glance informed him that a streak of silver was right behind a streak of yellow. Ratchet sighed.

"I already asked them what in blazes they're doing, and they're just racing to determine who has to clean a machine." There was the sound of squealing tires. "And Sideswipe just won but, according to Bumblebee, only because he cheated." Ratchet shook his head and resumed unpacking. Sam arched an eyebrow.

"And you know this because...?"

"Wifi communicator."

“Oh, right, I forget you’re all telepathic sometimes.”

"It's technology, not magic." Ratchet tilted his head like he was listening again. "For a scout, Bumblebee sure isn't good at realizing when someone cheats and doesn’t follow the race route. Sideswipe says Bee needs to learn not to be so oblivious.”

“Yeah, well. He can be,” Sam turned a page in his book. Hearing a Bot come to the doorway, he turned, and was disappointed when it was only Sideswipe.

            "Bee’s going to be the one to deal with all that black grease,” Sideswipe informed them, preening. “Sorry, Sam.”

"Jerk."

"What else could I do? I don't want it all over me, Sunstreaker hates the stuff." Had he been human, there would have been a look of unbearable smugness of his face, but there was more than enough in his voice to convey the sentiment. "Sorry about the door, Ratchet."

“What door?!”

“What door?” Sideswipe echoed, edging back in the direction he’d come from, “I have to go help… Ironhide. I’m busy. See you guys.” The corvette was speeding out of sight before Ratchet could do so much as protest.

“It’s just one disaster after another around here,” Ratchet grumbled. “ _Another_ broken door?”

Two hours passed without interruption; Sam tried to study, made only mediocre headway. He was thinking about Bee, trying to picture Bee in a high school: a little too dweeby to be a jock, too tough to be a geek, too innocent to be a troublemaker. Ratchet was finishing unpacking his boxes, had moved on to deciding where to put the most obscure parts, most of which Sam had never seen before and couldn’t hope to determine the use for.

The unannounced arrival of Optimus usually indicated some sort of trouble, and Sam’s heart rate quickened automatically. He’d been under the impression Optimus would be in meetings for several more hours, a bad sign.

“Optimus!” Ratchet looked equally surprised to see the other Bot in the doorway, yet another bad sign. “What brings you here? I thought the Secretary of –”

“The meeting had to be postponed,” Optimus looked directly to Sam, and Sam’s rapid pulse began twisting dread into his blood, spreading it everywhere inside him. “I’m afraid I have bad news.”

Sam learned what he held the most dear, when it flashed through his mind: Bee, his parents, Mikaela, his tiny dog –

“The Decepticons are looking for you. You still have the symbols in your mind, and they’re convinced there’s a second Allspark shard and that you’ll be instrumental in finding it.”

“But there’s not,” Sam insisted, although, what the hell did he know? His entire world routinely fell apart for things he’d never heard of before.

“They believe there must be. However, that isn’t the unfortunate news.” Optimus paused, uncharacteristically hesitant. “The Decepticons found your parents,” he said, and it was gentle, heralding worse news. “They attacked before we could stop them.”

“Are my parents okay?” Sam managed to ask, “are they?!”

“Sam…” The apologetic tone was heartfelt, and Sam had his answer. “Your father is fine, but your mother is in a coma.”

Sam’s mother, who called him every few days and kept promising to come visit, except it was so _far,_ Sam, did he _know_ what bad mileage they got with that truck his father had insisted on, like he was ever going to have a yacht he’d need to tow around, and she just about lost Mojo in the backseat the other day, it was so huge, and when it was her turn to have a midlife crisis she would get something suiting, like a convertible –

“I’m sorry, Sam,” Optimus’s voice echoed in the silent room. “We’ve sent Arcee to watch them now.”

“Who?” Sam asked distantly, though he’d heard the name before. She was a Bot that had joined them late in their time together, and mainly worked alone, far away.

“She’s our satellite scout,” Optimus said. “She’ll keep them safe.”

“But my mom’s in a coma,” Sam mumbled. He felt numb. She had to be okay, she was his _mom._ He hadn’t seen her in months, why hadn’t he seen her? He should have seen her. She called him Sammy and cried over his baby booties and when he was sick, she’d sleep on a futon in his room because he was so scared of being alone in the dark. Everything felt like that darkness now: feverish, hazy, wrongly proportioned, swallowing him up.

“Can I go see her?” Sam managed to get out, but Optimus shook his head no.

“It’s far too dangerous, Sam. Your parents would never want you to risk your safety like that. And I hate to say it, but your presence could make it more dangerous for them as well.”

“But my mom,” Sam said, helpless. It felt like all the explanation he should need: _but my mom._ “But she’s in a coma, and she’s my mom!”

“It’s too dangerous. Your father agrees. We need to keep you all safe.” He said more, about receiving reports from Arcee, about scanning for Decepticons, and Sam just nodded along until Optimus left to take care of the things he’d been talking about. 

            The next thing Sam felt was arms around him, and he knew who it was immediately: the gentle touch, the scent of grease from some machine, the soothing murmur in his ear. Bee’s holo had materialized on the table beside him, holding Sam against him as tears streaked down Sam’s cheeks.

            “She’ll be okay,” Bee whispered, “we’ll keep her safe, Sam.” Sam just sniffled and clung to him. Comas weren’t good. Everyone knew that. “They said her condition is stable,” Bee added, “that’s a good sign.”

            “What if she dies?” Sam choked out, “Bee, what if she _dies?”_ He pushed his face into Bee’s neck, drew in a shuddering breath. “Can you find out how she is?” he pleaded.

            “I’m checking her records,” Bee said, threading his fingers through Sam’s hair gently; Sam knew he was accessing the hospital’s computer system through his Bot form. “She has very minimal internal damage. A few broken bones and lacerations. She is a seven on the Glasgow Coma scale, which is good news.”

            “Has anyone found the Decepticons yet?” Sam asked, and Bee shook his head no.

            “But I won’t let anything happen to you,” Bee said, and even as everything fell down around Sam – his mother in the hospital, the Decepticons searching for him, the walls crumbling and the floor giving way, Sam reached for something steadying and he found Bee.

            “You promise,” Sam said, and Bee nodded, but it hadn’t been a question. He’d already promised, no words needed, when he wrapped his arms around Sam and the world ceased to crumble.


	13. Chapter 13

            The bright green 3:01 changed to 3:02. Bumblebee pulled his gaze from the glowing numerals, sighing. He tilted his head back against the headboard; beside him, Sam shifted fitfully in his sleep, mumbling. He was curled in a tight ball beside Bee, occasionally waking with a start, reaching for Bee every time. Bee was in his holo form instead of his human one; he normally preferred the human one, something feeling off when he was merely the copy of it. Having receptors instead of a human body made physical feelings duller, and there was something eerie about almost-but-not-quite recognizing himself in the mirror. In his holo form, however, he could access the technology that could connect him to the hospital computer system. Sure, there was probably something morally wrong about hacking into a hospital, but the nurses probably would have preferred it to constant middle-of-the-night phone calls, because Bee had to have an updated answer for Sam every time he asked.

            The answer hadn’t changed yet, though; Bee still had nothing. No changes. No improvements. No news was its own kind of news.

            Bee had lost his parents, but it wasn’t similar to the kind of loss Sam was facing. Bee had never known them; in a way, they’d never known him, either. Sam’s loss, the one Bee hoped he wouldn’t have, would be more like when Bee lost Cybertron: a home vanishing, and Bee may not have lived there at the time, but he still felt an aching loss for the possibility of going home. Sam’s loss would be worse; Bee had never lost someone like a mother.

            “Bee,” Sam mumbled, fingers closing in Bee’s shirt. Bee rubbed his hand over Sam’s houlder, felt Sam press closer. Bee felt the warmth of Sam’s skin under his fingertips less clearly than he would in his human form. It was like feeling every sensation through a barrier, slightly dulled.

            “Nothing yet, Sam.” He’d checked seven minutes ago and checked again, to the same results.

            “M’kay.” Sam scrunched the pillow up under his head, sniffling. His tears broke Bee’s heart. “Don’t you have to sleep?”

            “My Bot form is recharging outside. Don’t worry.”

            “Oh. Okay.” Sam was quiet again, and Bee would have thought he’d fallen asleep, had his scanners not informed him otherwise. The scanners were something he usually kept turned down, since having Sam’s medical information beamed straight into him felt stalkerish, and Sam probably wouldn’t appreciate the invasion of privacy; right now, Bee wanted a read on everything. If the first sign of a Decepticon approaching was Sam’s increase of brain waves as they tried to read the signs in his mind, Bee wanted to know about it.

            “Hey, Bee?” Sam ventured again, sounded nearly asleep again, voice drowsy.

            “Yeah?”

            “Is it selfish I’m glad you’re not sleeping because I like that you’re awake whenever I wake up?”

            _Selfish,_ Bee thought, the word seeping through him like a poison, slow but steady, killing him but not today.

            “Course not. That’s why I’m here,” Bee soothed, because Sam, Sam could never be selfish.

            Even after Sam had drifted back to a fitful sleep, his words lingered. Sam thought he was selfish for wanting Bee to be there when he woke up, to comfort him back to sleep, in the midst of Sam’s nightmare. Sam could only know what selfish was through Bee’s example.

            Prolonging their relationship as long as possible, to salvage more memories to rely on later. Keeping secrets and hiding things in an effort to keep it going longer, longer. Letting time be wasted so the loneliness would be just a little further away.

            Some of it, Sam knew, but seemed determined to forgive Bee for. There was only one thing keeping Bee from being consumed by his selfishness, the one act he hadn’t committed.

            Truly selfish would be asking Sam to give up everything to stay together, and it was the one question Bumblebee would never allow himself to ask.

 

\--

             The café reeled with voices and movement, but Bee tried to ignore it, focus the last of his energy reserves on Sam alone. His Bot form was recharging outside, but being a holo at the same time was slowing down the process.

            “Sam,” Bee said, gentle. He’d brought Sam to the café to get breakfast, because there was no food in Sam’s apartment, and Bee especially wanted to distract Sam from his nerve-wracking worry. The café was busy, the line for the counter stretching back towards the doors, although most of the tables clustered by the window were empty, the majority of customers buying food and then dashing off to work.

            “I’m fine,” Sam repeated what was fast becoming his mantra. He was still distant, despite all the distractions available.

            “You have to eat something,” Bee insisted gently, to a frown from Sam. Sam complied, though, picking at his bagel and eating a small piece. He was staring at the line of customers, vaguely confused, like he couldn’t believe life was proceeding normally for everyone else.

            “Where’re we going next?” Sam asked after a few minutes.

            “Thought we’d check in with Ratchet.” If there’d been any news, Ratchet would have comm’d Bee immediately, but Bee was hoping Ratchet would have something comforting to say to Sam. Sam just nodded in apathetic agreement.

Bee had expected to find Ratchet at the medical center, but it was empty. He drove by the hanger, and then found Ratchet parked in the lot outside the engineering complex beside Ironhide, drove up next to them.

“Sideswipe and Optimus are in there,” Ironhide informed him when he approached. “Haven’t spoken since their fight.”

“Hey, Bee,” Sam said, sitting inside the Camaro. “Do you think Optimus would… do it again?”

“I don’t know,” Bee had been thinking about it constantly. He’d reached no answers. “He’s always believed in the Autobots coming before the individual Bot, so… I don’t know.”

Sam was quiet for a moment. “I can see why Sideswipe is so… angry isn’t even the word.”

“You didn’t know him before it happened,” Bee sighed. It was hard to remember a Sideswipe before the devastation; his loss had become part of him, inextricable, and to have it suddenly undone – Sideswipe was understandably ruined all over again, at the pointlessness of his loss, at the recoloring of it.

What if that happened to Sam? Bee would hate to be Sunstreaker, to see his Sam become someone devastated by pain.

“Why are you eavesdropping on them, anyways?” Bee asked Ironhide and Ratchet, when he realized he could hear Sideswipe and Optimus’s voices floating over from engineering.

“Just worried,” Ironhide said, and Bee couldn’t blame him.

“You’re supposed to be in Receiving,” Ratchet added to Ironhide, “packaging up the returns.”

‘Yeah, well, it can wait.”

            “Sideswipe,” Optimus’s voice carried over from the cavernous engineering building’s empty roll-up door. “I believe an apology is in order.”

            “Yeah?” Sideswipe’s voice was taut, snappish. “Well, not one from me.”

            “I did not mean from you,” Optimus said, voice calm. Something heavy clanged, like it had been dropped. “I may have made the wrong decision.”

            “ _May have.”_

            “I had valid reasons,” Optimus said; even apologizing, his voice was hard. “You must understand you were endangering others.”

            “How? How could that possibly-”

            “I could see how much you meant to him. And I knew the choices he could make and that they would endanger our side. With so few of us left, our actions are magnified.”

            “Choices?” Sideswipe snarled.

            “If it came down to killing a Decepticon or saving your life – or even saving another Autobot, there was no chance he would let you die.”

            “You would let an Autobot die, if it meant killing a Decepticon?” Sideswipe asked stonily. “It’s more important to eradicate them than to save us?”

            “The Autobots are all soldiers. They would all want it that way. We have to protect everyone the Decepticons would endanger, there are planets like this one who would never be able to defeat them, we are the only ones who can. It’s our duty.”

            “So if I asked the Bot you were willing to let die,” Sideswipe said, “do you think he’d say that? He dies, but it means more Decepticons will die?”

            “Sideswipe-”

            “I know this wasn’t the last time you sacrificed a teammate,” Sideswipe’s tone had turned icy. Bee felt a chill seep through him.

            “He was saved,” Optimus said.

“Because your _human_ comrade decided his life was worth saving. How could you think he’d want it that way, that he wouldn’t mind being tortured by the military while you went after Decepticons instead?”

"He's a soldier. He knows-"

"He knows. We all know. But that doesn't mean you can't try and save them. You truly think that Bumblebee would be fine with it, if he knew you did nothing to try and save him? That you put the cube before a comrade? You were willing to let him die. You saw what a mistake it was to kill Sunstreaker, and you did it again." Something heavy was slammed down. "So you can see why I can't forgive you until you realize what was really wrong and what wasn't."

Optimus was going to let Bee die. Bee had never really pieced it together, knew Sam had saved him, but he’d assumed – he’d thought Optimus had been behind that.

Bee brought his holo form into existence, beside Sam in the Camaro backseat, reaching for Sam’s hand, suddenly needing to touch him. “I thought he sent you,” Bee murmured to Sam, “not that you did it on your own.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam whispered. “I didn’t know. I just – was doing my own thing, but I thought it was what he’d have done, too. I was just focused on you.”

Ironhide’s holo materialized beside the Camaro, and he leaned through the open window. “We all thought he was wrong to do that,” he said, and his eyes were apologetic, sad. “No one wanted to leave you. Jazz was ready to rip Optimus apart and was going to tell you when Optimus had done, but…” Ironhide shook his head. “He was the one that wanted to find Sunstreaker, confirm he was dead and not just gone, but Optimus wouldn’t let him.”

            Footsteps from the building made the assembled Bots scramble to disband. Ironhide’s holo vanished and the pickup truck slunk away; Ratchet crept off as well. Bee didn’t dissolve his holo as he drove away, couldn’t let go of Sam.

            “I can’t believe he would do it again.” Bee stared down at the floor. “After seeing what it did to Sideswipe. He did it again.” To _Bee._ Bee had been telling himself that Optimus wouldn’t, that he and Sam were safe, but it had _already_ happened. It was too late, he couldn’t be safe from something that had already happened.

            Sam was watching him, squeezed Bee’s hand. Bee looked up, managed a small smile. “You came on your own to help me.”

            “Yeah,” Sam nodded, “I just – I couldn’t believe it even worked, but I was ready to do anything. That asshole agent guy, I demanded my car, my parents, Mikaela’s juvie record gone.”

            “You barely even knew me.”

            “I wanted you safe.”

            It would have been less risky for Optimus; even the military wouldn’t have really been able to fight off an Autobot if he’d stormed in there and taken back his teammate. Optimus hadn’t. But Sam, with so much that could be lost so readily, looked in the face of an organization that could destroy his life, and demanded to have Bee back.

            Sam’s phone started ringing, and he dug it out of his pocket to answer. “Dad?” Sam looked hopeful for the first time. “How’s Mom?”

            “No changes.” His dad’s voice sounded weary even at a distance. “And before you ask,” he went on, as Sam opened his mouth to probably do just that, “no, you can’t come here. I’m sorry, Sam. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, too. You know your mother wouldn’t want you risking your life like that.”

            “I wish I was there anyways,” Sam sighed. Bee wrapped an arm around Sam’s shoulders, just wanted to give as much comfort as he could, desperate to.

            “You know what she’d say? ‘Sam, for heaven’s sake, what are you doing here? I’ve been _asleep,_ I have nurses who will even bring me breakfast in bed, you don’t need to be here rising your life!’” Sam’s dad mimicked, incredibly drawing a smile from Sam.

            After they’d said goodbye, Sam was quiet, sunk his head down to Bee’s shoulder. Traffic had come to a gridlock, halted as people left for work all at the same time. Special meetings involving the Decepticon attacks had to account for some of the cars, given how many military personnel were flooding in to assess the current state of danger. They crawled through a few blocks, stopping at all the lights.

“At least I was able to save you,” Sam whispered, “I can’t do anything for Mom, but I’m so glad I could have saved you.”          

            Bee pressed a kiss to Sam’s hair. Even with his receptors turned on high, it still wasn’t quite like being human.

            “What if he does it again?” Sam asked, and Bee exhaled slowly.

            “I don’t know.” Bee stroked Sam’s cheek, rested his hand over Sam’s heartbeat. “I just want to protect you.” He didn’t know how, but there had to be some way that he could; Sam had found a way to save Bee, after all. Faced with innumerable risks and dangers he couldn’t even understand, Sam had saved Bee.

\--

            Sam had thought car washes were hard with Bumblebee, who liked to make things more difficult by moving back and forth, but it turned out that was nothing compared to Skids. Sam had decided to start paying off his poker bets, to keep his mind off the miserable lack of news. He’d called his father so often he may as well not have bothered to hang up every time, and Bee had been keeping a constant eye on the hospital computers. There was still no news, and Sam was trying to take away his ability to think of the worse-case scenarios.

            “Get back here!” Sam nearly sprayed himself with the hose when Skids went peeling across the runway again. Maniacal laughter made him give chase with a bucket of water, yelling, “stop, stop!” 

            “Slow-ass!”

            “Stop running away!” Sam sprinted after him, and when he was nearly close enough to the green car, heaved the soapy water at it. Skids only slowed down enough for Sam to touch the green paint with the end of his fingertip before roaring away again. Sam huffed and scowled after the car that zigzagged across the pavement.

            “Looks like you’re losing,” Bee’s voice made Sam turn and smile, especially when he saw that Bee wasn’t a holo, he was in his human form. It was Sam’s favourite, between the two; it felt more like Bee’s.

            “He keeps moving.” Sam watched the green car zip around the other side of the hanger; he was interrupted from yelling after it by a splash of water that let him know Bee was feeling neglected. “Hey!” Sam spun to face a giggling Bee, “you’re just as mean as he is!”

            “”But that’s no fair,” Bee pouted, dramatics coming easily to him, “you’re so cute when you’re wet.”

            “Yeah?" Sam grinned, crossing the distance between them and held Bee against the wall, kissing him hard. While Bee was distracted, he reached out to snag the hose from its hanger on the wall and turn the knob with his fingertips. He nearly lost focus himself, from the way Bee was licking his lip and probing into Sam's mouth with his tongue. Sam loved Bee's tight hold on him, the way he wound his arms around Sam like he never wanted to let go. Despite that, Sam managed to wiggle back and, putting his thumb over the hose, turned the water on Bee. Bee howled and spluttered, ducking away.

"Sam!" He held up his hands in front of him, as if to block the water. "No fair!”

"But you're cute when you're wet" Sam protested, grinning. Bee stuck his tongue out at Sam.

"Drop the hose or I'll drown you, pretty boy."

"I've got the water." Sam flicked more water at him, and Bee dived away, spitting out water. When Bee was adequately dripping wet, Sam tossed aside the hose and pulled Bee to him before Bee could complain about the water. He pressed against Sam, lips finding Sam's in seconds. Ice-cold fingers dragged down Sam's back, wet shirt sticking to Sam as Bee pressed kisses to his neck and shoulder. "You know we're in the middle of the hanger, right?" Sam managed to gasp out. Bee merely pulled him down to sit on the wet cement, straddling Sam's legs. Sam watched Bee pull his wet shirt away from himself, making a face at how wet he was. "Well, if you don't mind, I don't." This got a laugh from Bee.

"Only reason I mind is because decency requires you to keep your pants on out here in public." Bee settled himself in a straddle over Sam's lap, shifting down against Sam's groin to draw a moan from Sam. "Except this whole water thing isn't for me. You messed up my hair."

"Oh, I'm sorry" Sam rolled his eyes, smiled.

“I just got it all gelled nice,” Bee pouted, flipping the wet hair back from his forehead.

“Really? You’ll have to show me again later.”

"Mmm. Why do you think I came out here?" Bee nipped at Sam's ear. "How come you'll give him a carwash and not me?"

"Because" Sam yanked Bee to him and kissed him soundly, reveling in the little moaning noise he got from Bee. "I knew it would turn into this."

"Is that so bad?" He fisted his hands in the back of Sam's shirt, water trickling down his face. “Maybe I want to be known as _that_ Bot.”

What would Bee be known for, Sam wondered, wanted to let himself be completely carried away by Bee’s kisses but a part of him still caught, grounded; _oh, he’s the one who a human fell in love with,_ they might say, if there were still any Autobots out there who might talk about Bee, who didn’t already know Bee like this: with Sam.

\--

            Sunstreaker had been to just about every place he could think of. He’d worked his way through all his best ideas and nearing the bottom of the list was the apartment building. It was the same one where Sam lived on the seventh floor; the Bots had been given an apartment as well, more as a nice gesture than anything else. Ironhide used it to hide from the Twins, Optimus occasionally held video meetings there, Sideswipe stored a collection of books he was fond of in the bedroom. They didn’t spend much time there, but Sunstreaker was running out of ideas and as he drove up to the building, he was suddenly certain he’d finally found Sideswipe.

            He could have just rematerialized his holo up on the nineteenth floor, but found himself walking into the lobby instead, stepping into the elevator. He’d always needed this, time to imagine what he might say to Sideswipe, forming a plan that never materialized. Sunstreaker was as dedicated to his strategy as he was incapable of implementing it; eloquent arguments were made and died unspoken deaths, every time he had anything to talk to Sideswipe about. Every word Sunstreaker knew would burn up, lit on fire by his need for Sideswipe to understand.

            Sunstreaker stared at the dim numbers as the elevator doors slid shut, watched them slowly light up one by one.

Second floor. He remembered meeting Sideswipe. He’d been arrogant back then, blatantly, cheerfully; they’d all been in holo form, and he’d been competing with Ironhide and Jazz to see who could charm more people. Maybe that was why Sunstreaker loved the holo program so much; back then, an entirely different world around them, this was what Sideswipe had looked like when they’d met.

Fifth floor. He’d been drawn to Sideswipe, his particular way of being so compelling. Teasing and confident, sweetly badgering until he got whatever answer he wanted, a sweetness only accentuated by his sharpness. “Optimus told us you were coming,” Sideswipe had said to Sunstreaker, looking at Sunstreaker like he already knew everything about him, had extensively sorted through and decided what he liked and what he didn’t. The first time Sunstreaker kissed him – Sideswipe had the same look. Unsurprised, assured, like he’d known Sunstreaker had come here just for him. Cosmically, as fated, for him.

Seventh floor. Sam’s apartment; Sunstreaker knew that was where he’d find Bee, too. Bee’s car form was outside, no doubt so he could continue peeking into the hospital’s computer system while still being with Sam in the apartment. Sunstreaker didn’t like what waited for them; Sam’s human lifespan giving out on them, Bee being deactivated like Sunstreaker, any number of things they wouldn’t see coming. There was nothing Sunstreaker could say to save them; if someone had told him _one day, you’ll lose him,_ back in the beginning, he doubted he’d have had the strength to walk away. _I’ll love him until that happens, then,_ he’d have said, and maybe felt selfish for it for the rest of his life, loving Sideswipe knowing the pain he’d eventually suffer at Sunstreaker’s hands. Maybe it was selfish that Sunstreaker was glad he’d never been told that, had gone blindly and wholeheartedly into their painful future.

Tenth floor. “I love you,” Sideswipe had said, like it was a weapon. They’d always had a bite to them, with brawling tempers and stubbornness meeting its match; they were forces to be reckoned with who had found each other. Two sides of the same coin, opposites but made of the same stuff.

Twelfth floor. “I hate you,” they’d each said, far more than once. Sometimes, they said it another way, meaning it with an _I love you._ Sunstreaker had known, immediately, that Sideswipe would be – not hard to love, but hard to be in love with.

Fourteenth floor. Was there a point, somewhere in the future, where it would have been too late for Sunstreaker to come back? Where he would have returned, and found anything but what he had now – Sideswipe, waiting, in love with him.

Seventeenth floor. Sunstreaker still didn’t know what he was going to say.

Nineteenth floor.

The door was locked, and Sunstreaker materialized his holo on the other side of it, walked into the bedroom. “Did you have to be this hard to find?” he asked, leaned his shoulder against the doorframe. Sideswipe was lying on the bed with his back to the door, looking out at the night sky beyond the window.

“I’m impressed you found me.” Sideswipe didn’t look over, eyes on the stars. “Not sure I wanted you to.”

“Well, I always can.” Sunstreaker crossed the room to settle himself beside Sideswipe, rested a hand on his hip. “We all heard you and Optimus.”

            “All?”

            “Yeah,” Sunstreaker answered the unhappy question lurking in the word, “them, too.”

            “I’ll kill Optimus myself if he makes this happen to them.” Sideswipe’s voice was low, frigid.

            “I don’t think he could. It was a different situation, back then.” It had felt different, anyways. Everything had felt dire, dangerous; Sunstreaker had felt like he was saving Sideswipe’s life by sacrificing his own, in a time when everything felt profound and necessary. It would be different, for Bumblebee and Sam; a quieter danger, a growing unknown. It certainly wouldn’t end the same; this luck, the one they’d had, Sunstreaker felt horribly certain it couldn’t happen twice. That he’d come back – how could it? His own guilt’s heaviness seemed to promise it; he felt so deeply guilty for feeling lucky because some part of him knew they’d used it up, the exhaustible resource of luck. It couldn’t happen again.

“I wish it hadn’t happened to you,” Sunstreaker murmured, wanted to plead for, somehow, this: someone, years ago, who had known enough to save them both. Maybe for it to have happened to someone else first, so they, brokenhearted, would know enough to tell Sunstreaker _you aren’t saving him from anything, don’t do it._

            Sunstreaker had asked about the lost years. He’d gone to Ironhide and asked about the interim, in between the Sideswipe he’d left and the one he’d found. _I thought he would never talk about you again,_ Ironhide had said, _he hasn’t said your name in centuries._ He hadn’t needed to elaborate; it had been a loss so great, it hadn’t needed words. Everyone had known it was the defining tragedy of Sideswipe’s life.

            “It’s over,” Sideswipe said into the silence, “it happened, but it’s over.”

It wasn’t the same as if it had never happened at all, despite the same conclusion: Sunstreaker, with Sideswipe. A tragedy between them, behind them, within them. They were as defined by loss as they were by the found; the sun dawning on their darkness wouldn’t save anything that hadn’t made it through the night.


	14. Chapter 14

Things had been easier when they were lying. Sunstreaker wasn’t sure what that said about any of them – that Optimus was an unforgiving wall, that Sideswipe was happier under the radar and free from qualms about his lies, that Sunstreaker never regretted lies so much as he regretted honesty. Sunstreaker was avoiding meeting Optimus’s optics, focusing instead on the broken satellite before him. Optimus was doing the same, watching and then not watching, and their day had been just this, on loop.

            “Something you’d like to say, Optimus?” Sunstreaker finally said, after ten more minutes of the strained silence. Optimus studied the piece of machinery in his hands with too much concentration.

            “I do not wish to start an argument.”

            “Who do you think I am?” Sunstreaker snorted. Sideswipe had always been the quick-tempered one; Sunstreaker didn’t dive into fights, liked to step back and circle around them.

            “Perhaps I still associate you two as twins with overlapping personalities,” Optimus said; the silence slunk back into the room.

            “If we’d told you at the start,” Sunstreaker started, but didn’t finish. He’d lied, immediately; something had sparked between him and Sideswipe, and Sunstreaker had always been analytical to a fault, with a morality that served him and him alone. He’d explained away the closeness before anyone could question it: long-separated twins, a closeness that was just familiarity, a separation that hadn’t bothered them greatly. He’d known, immediately, that they’d been about to become a liability, and that whatever they were becoming, it was something he had to protect. Everyone had believed him, and the cover story was more believable than the reality: they’d found each other, two randomly colliding stars, and turned out to be perfect reflections of each other, light and dark of the same day.

            “You would have separated us before anything could begin,” Sunstreaker concluded, didn’t have to hear it from Optimus.

            “Sunstreaker,” Optimus began, placating, but Sunstreaker held up a hand.

            “I’m not here to fight.” He had his answer; Optimus would avoid repeating what had happened, but still considered it a viable option. Maybe his criteria would be more discriminating now, but there were still situations where he would come to the conclusion that deactivation was the answer.

            Sunstreaker sighed, turning back to his work with a glance at the clock on the wall. It was nearing ten thirty PM; no doubt Sideswipe had gotten impatient and gone to work on the situation in his own way. It was a dangerous prospect; he had yet to include gentleness in his personality. He wasn’t ineffective, though; Sunstreaker would let him run on his rampant, effective path before reigning things back in.

\--

            Bumblebee just wanted to be back in the room he was beginning to call home. He wanted to be curled up beside Sam under the blankets and just sleep; his heart cried for Sam, who would be asleep alone by now, and Bee hated to think of Sam waking up to find himself still alone. His human still cried for his mother in his sleep, as they waited for any change in news, and Bee didn’t want to leave him alone with that misery.

            He wished he was in his holo form so he could just rematerialize in Sam’s room, but was currently human; his work in engineering was easier in this form, the tiny wires and gears easier to repair. He had more precision of feeling as a human, compared to his holo’s receptors, which had to translate back to his Bot form instead of feeling organically. The downside was that transforming back to his Bot form took so much more energy, far more than he had at the moment. If he tried it at such a low power level, he felt like he’d end up unconscious.

            “You’re not with Sam.” Sideswipe’s voice; Bee turned, to find Sideswipe’s holo watching him.

            “He’s probably asleep already. I had stuff to finish up.” Bee shrugged. “Took longer than I thought it would.” Seeing the dubious look, he realized that Sideswipe probably suspected he'd been off murdering Tanner. "I was at the engineering complex." Not going after the soldier that had tried to steal his boyfriend, much as he wanted to.

"Oh, cool." Sideswipe didn't care; Bee wondered what he wanted. "Can I ask you something?" Bee was pretty sure it would be something he didn't want to answer, but Sideswipe didn't give him the chance to say anything about it, "How serious are you and Sam?"

"I dunno. Not very." Bee slipped his hands into his jeans pockets, looking down at the sidewalk. "Nothing serious. Just..." He wasn't about to say 'just kissing and sex' to Sideswipe. Awkward wouldn't be the half of it. He just hoped Sideswipe wasn't going to make this miserable by talking about the real truths of the matter. The truth shouldn't have hurt as much as it did; Bee hated thinking about it, hated it more than anything else. It felt serious, but how could it be; at the end of the day, at the end of all their days, at endings staggered by centuries, Bee wasn’t a human.

“You’ve got a lot more human in you than you’ve led him to believe.”

Although Sideswipe was certainly dramatizing it, there was some truth in his statement, if in a more nuanced way. Bee was a Bot in spark and in primary form, but having a true human form had been a heartwrenching challenging throughout Bee’s life. The loss of a human lifetime had sent echoes of abandonment through all his years; Bee had never felt like he belonged, and the lack of answers about the interaction between his two forms just served to make him feel lost, forgotten by both species when he fell into the gaps between them.

“I’m fine with the way things are.” It could never be true. He craved belonging; meaninglessness would kill him.

“No, you’re not. If I know you,” Sideswipe said, and he did; that was the worst part. “You’re going to think about him for the next thousand years, and while all the worlds change, you’re going to live here. You’ll be stuck in already-lived days, and the future will feel like it’s going on forever and just taking you farther away from where you want to be.”

“Just stop,” Bee mumbled. It was true, of course it was true.

“You can’t even accept how much this means to you. You think you can deal with it ending tomorrow? Next week? In ten years? You will never be ready for it to be over. What if he moves on, one day? That’s what will happen if you don’t tell the whole truth about what you want. He’s going to think you can move on with your life.” Sideswipe was right, and Bee was suppressing little sobs, clenching his jaw against tears. “You can’t lose this.”

            “No,” Bee was nearly pleading, fists tight at his sides, unsure whether he was begging mercy from Sideswipe or from everything happening to him, “it’s not like that. I’m fine with whatever I can get. I don’t-”

            “Don’t love him? You did all that to get him, and now that you’ve got him, you’re just terrified to scare him away.”

            “I won’t,” Bee choked out, tried not to back down, glaring up at Sideswipe.

            “Won’t love him? You don’t get to choose that, Bee. Once you find it, whether you want it or not, you give part of yourself away. That’s it. Love finds you, and takes from you. You don’t get it back if he leaves you, or dies before you. And you _keep losing._ Once he’s gone, and he’s your soulmate, you just keep losing and don’t get anything back, because he’s gone.”

            The worst part was hearing it from Sideswipe. He knew because he’d _done_ this; he’d been there, to the days Bumblebee was going to end up, and he knew Bee couldn’t have an ending like his own. Sam would not be coming back for him.

            “You won’t even feel like the person he loved anymore,” Sideswipe said, voice low, “you won’t even have that, after losing him.”

            “I can’t!” Bee insisted, “I can’t ask him to give up that much for me! I can’t ruin his life because I want him for myself-”

            “So what can you do? Forget him now, and break his heart too? Let him move on and be without you? Let him die without ever telling him you love him?”

            Bee gave a strangled little sob that sounded like he’d dragged it from somewhere deep inside him, a depth his hologram form couldn’t possess.

            “I can’t do it to Sam,” Bee heard himself repeating, “I can’t, I can’t. I’m supposed to protect him.” Maybe he should have been protecting Sam from himself. “I tried to,” he said, mostly answering his own thoughts, “I tried to hide it. I’ve been in love with him since he got into the driver’s seat and said ‘cars pick their drivers,’ because it felt like he understood that I wanted him _that badly._ But I can’t – I can’t ask that of him.”

“Did you ever think he’d want you to ask?”

“He couldn’t. _I_ couldn’t.”

“Or maybe that he’d have wanted to know what was really going on before he got involved?” Maybe Sideswipe was trying to protect Bee; it was like he wished he’d done it earlier, that he could have stopped all this before it started, but here they both were, underway.

“Just leave me alone,” Bee finally choked out. Sideswipe stood there, though, watching him and the tears trickling down Bee’s cheeks.

“I’m sorry I didn’t stop you earlier,” Sideswipe finally said, as if he could have, as if Bee would have known to let him.

\--

            Like the sun and the moon, one followed the other: Sunstreaker came along soon after Sideswipe left. Bee felt the warm hand at his back, and he half wished it would be Sam, although had a twinge of relief when he looked up and saw Sunstreaker.

            “Hey, Bee.” Sunstreaker sat beside him on the floor of the vast room in the engineering complex. Bee could almost have forgotten the habits of Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, how they were together even when they weren’t – if they weren’t in the same place at the same time, they followed each other, passing through the same place. “He didn’t mean to be harsh. He’s just worried about you.” His voice was gentle, soft. “You don’t deserve to be hurting.”

            “He could have delivered his message a little nicer.”

            “He just knows what it’s like, and I think the prospect of you going through what he did is making him desperate to stop it somehow. I think being able to look back at it, now that it’s over, instead of being in the midst of it – he can really see what happened to him. I don’t think he knew how deep the pain was until now, now that he’s trying to come back out of it. He can see he’s not the same as he was before. He lost himself, not just me.”

            And Bee, they all surely thought, wouldn’t survive a loss of self. He had so fragile a grasp on his own identity already, lost between two species as he was.

            “It’s too late.” Bee tilted his head to Sunstreaker’s shoulder, sighed out a slow breath. It had started to rain outside, the cold seeping into the drafty room. If he was a holo, he could turn down his receptors, so he wouldn’t feel the cold so sharply. As a human, he had to feel everything. “I never should have done this. I’d have nothing to miss if I hadn’t.”

            “You don’t want that,” Sunstreaker murmured. “At least you’ve had this time together. I know he said losing Sam is losing part of yourself, but the way Sam completes you now – would you even be yourself, if you didn’t love him? This is part of you.”

            Bee tried to force the tears away again. He hated crying; it reminded him of what it was like to be human – but that wasn’t entirely true, was it? It helped him fabricate memories. He had no idea what it felt like to be just human.

            “I’m sorry it’s this way,” Sunstreaker said softly, “Just love him while you have him.”

            At least Bee had Sam; he’d already lost an unlived lifetime, centuries ago. Losing Sam would be losing someone he loved and _knew;_ maybe that was better than losing something that only could have been. That felt too infinite.

\--

            Sam would have been worried, had Sunstreaker not contacted him to let him know Bee was fine. It was nearly two AM, and if Sam hadn’t known where Bee was, would have been convinced the Decepticons had ambushed him somehow. It wasn’t until two fourteen that the door opened, and Sam heard footsteps in the living room. When they didn’t immediately come towards the bedroom, Sam got out of bed, went to find Bee in the living room.

            “Hey,” Sam whispered, finding Bee at the window, staring out at the cloudy, starless sky. He was wet from the rain, exhaustion like a weight sitting on his shoulders. “I was worried about you.” He slipped his arms around Bee from behind, kissed Bee’s wet hair.

“I’m sorry,” Bee didn’t explain any further, but sounded apologetic, sorry for more than this.

“You okay? It kind of doesn’t seem like it.”

Bee sighed out a breath, shook his head a little. It wasn’t clear whether that was his answer, or his declining to answer. He didn’t seem ready to go to bed, so Sam stood there with him, watching the rain on the windows.

Sometimes, Sam felt acutely aware of how different he and Bee were, of how much longer Bee had been alive, how different that life had been. They were in the exact same moment now, but their diverging paths had come from such staggeringly different places that Sam was at times overwhelmed by how unable he was to really comprehend it. Bee had been on other _planets,_ and didn’t just know more than Sam but knew about things Sam wasn’t even aware existed; it was like Bee was on an entirely different plane of existence.

And yet, here they were, their planes converging, their lives continuing as one, for a while.

\--

“You could have been gentler with him.” Sunstreaker stood in the doorway, crossed his arms over his chest. Sideswipe was a holo, circling his car form, parked in the silent warehouse.

“Maybe now he’ll get it.”

“You could have been gentler,” Sunstreaker repeated with conviction, glaring at Sideswipe. “He’s young, and hurt, and in love. You know what that’s like.”

“I wanted him to know what would come after if he didn’t _do_ something.”

            “I know you wish you had stopped him before it all began,” Sunstreaker said, making Sideswipe turn to face him with an icy glower. “But hammering him with it now can’t undo that. And it can’t undo what happened to you.”

            “Of course it can’t,” Sideswipe snorted, “what a stupid thing to say. Nothing can undo that.” His words were harsh, though, sharp and biting. He didn’t want to watch it again, that was clear to Sunstreaker. He wanted to protect Bee, and maybe himself a little, too. Sideswipe wanted to get so far away from what happened to them that he wanted to live in a world where it happened to no one.

            “You don’t have to go to this extend to protect yourself.”

            “Why not? _You_ didn’t,” Sideswipe snapped, and how was it, that Sunstreaker suddenly understood him so much better? He hadn’t really lived through those hundreds of years, had woken up what felt like immediately; and yet, seeing his Sideswipe on the other side, Sunstreaker could see all that the loss had brought out in him. Sideswipe was brutal in his determination to protect himself, in the wake of Sunstreaker’s failure to do so. He was a more complete picture now, the faults that mirrored his strengths. Sunstreaker had known only the edges of it, before, had been in love even with the bad side, confused as to how he could be.

            Sideswipe came closer, reached to touch Sunstreaker’s shoulder. “He needed to hear it,” Sideswipe said, firm. “It wasn’t just about me.”

            “He doesn’t have to learn through pain.” Sunstreaker nudged Sideswipe backwards in staggering steps, meeting his eyes. The backs of Sideswipe’s knees hit the bumper of the corvette, and the look he gave Sunstreaker was furious and fiery and aching for him.

            “But it _worked.”_

            “You don’t even know that.” How could someone he loved so much make him so angry? He thought that was why – he loved Sideswipe _so much,_ of course this would be the Bot who could make him angriest, Sunstreaker felt so much towards him. As his perception shifted, so too went his emotions, rushing like a wave – disappointment at Sideswipe’s selfishness, anger at his brutality, irritation at his single-mindedness.

            “I was trying to help.”

            “Don’t help like that again.” Sunstreaker didn’t let him go, leaned over until Sideswipe’s back hit the corvette hood. It was familiar, theirs; they always fought, clashing in a way that felt like fitting together. Of course he would be the one Sunstreaker loved the most.

            It was just like before, but more desperate, more needed; clothes yanked away, hands reaching, Sideswipe insisting that he couldn’t wait any longer, needed him, _needed_ him. In this, there were ways he hadn’t changed – the same noises, the same angles, but there were ways he had, too – he clung to Sunstreaker tighter, kept him closer, always had to be holding on to him. The electricity that sparked between them felt the same, but maybe more, like they had to lose everything to understand how much they lived on it.

            “You make me so _angry,”_ Sunstreaker hissed, and Sideswipe gave a short laugh.  

            “I am everything you are,” he said, and it was close to true. He was everything Sunstreaker hated about himself; somehow, he had crossed galaxies, and found someone with the same flaws as him, had been drawn to it like a beacon of belonging.

            Afterwards, collapsed beside Sideswipe on the hood, Sideswipe’s ragged breaths felt like something he had earned. The corvette hood beneath them was warm, radiating the same heat as Sideswipe’s holo. Sideswipe reached to touch Sunstreaker’s long, reddish hair, running his fingers through it slowly, like it mesmerized him, as his breathing slowed.

            He felt like a warped reflection, everything Sunstreaker was but also everything he wasn’t. He was sensitive in a way Sunstreaker wasn’t, but lacked his gentleness; driven like Sunstreaker couldn’t be, but without the same kind of commitment. Sunstreaker loved Sideswipe’s differences like Sideswipe himself couldn’t.         

            “I love you,” Sunstreaker said, and Sideswipe shivered when Sunstreaker ran his fingers over the sleek black metal of the corvette hood, feeling the touch in both forms. Sideswipe looped a lock of hair between his fingers, studied it with undue concentration.

            “I love you so much I thought it would protect me,” Sideswipe murmured, “I couldn’t believe the universe could take you from me, when I loved you like that. I almost _didn’t_ believe it at first, it didn’t make sense. You were mine, you were made for me – why would it take you away?”

            “It brought me back,” Sunstreaker said, although it felt unfair to see it as meaningful, because who else could this happen to? He’d died, and here he was, given back to Sideswipe. It felt like an oversight, an outlier.

            “How could it take you away?” Sideswipe’s voice was lost, quiet. “I’m not the same anymore, but somehow, here you are. Still my perfect match.”

            “I was made for you,” Sunstreaker believed it, had always believed it. Things were never effortless, but they were always impossible any other way. They were made for each other, a perfect match in every imperfect place. “Made to be lost, maybe. But yours.”

\--


	15. Chapter 15

 

            When Sam’s dad called him, Sam tried to immediately launch into his speech about how Sam really should be at the hospital, but his dad was unusually efficient in cutting him off.

            “Sam!” his dad interrupted, and Sam sighed, ready to be turned down again, his dad citing overly cautious safety concerns. He bounced his heels against the sides of the metal toolbox he sat atop, the sound echoing in the high-ceilinged room, lost in the vast space. “Sam, she’s going to be okay. Your mother’s woken up, just a few minutes ago, and she’s going to make a full recovery.”

            Everything came out of slow motion; color seeped back in, Sam’s heart unwound itself from the knots it had folded into.

            “You still shouldn’t come. Your mother would never want you in harm’s way, the best thing you can give her is you being definitely, completely safe.”

            “But she’s okay? You guys are okay?”

            “Everyone is going to be fine,” his dad assured, “Arcee’s here standing guard, and she’s very reliable. We’re all fine.” It was finally the answer Sam had been hoping to receive; for once, he didn’t feel twisted empty of breath, left suspended over a chasm of worry. Sam could hardly speak, overcome by the wordless feeling of absolute relief.

            He was still speechless after he’d hung up the phone, still in shock as the disbelief slowly wore off. It was like his pent-up anxiety was slowly unspooling itself, relaxing, sighing apart. The world had decided not to fall to pieces yet. Nothing was over, not now.

            The sound of metal nearly exploding made Sam glance up. Maybe a few years ago, he would have been nearly hysterical at the violent sound, but now knew that Ironhide's equally violent cussing would follow in a matter of seconds.

"You are such a-" Ironhide started raging, going on to describe just how he felt in the most colorful terms possible. Sam was only mildly concerned when smoke wafted around the corner, deciding to go investigate only after he heard something heavy and metal hit the ground, ringing out with finality.

Rounding the corner, Sam saw that the "something" had been part of the wall. Ironhide had somehow managed to put a hole in the wall, big enough to drive a battleship through. The grey bot was cursing up a storm, stomping around collecting metal brackets to use to support the wall; their easy-to-access existence made Sam think that wasn’t an irregular occurrence. Ironhide received no help whatsoever from Bumblebee, who laughed until Ironhide swung a steel pole at him.

"Just hold up that part of the wall" Ironhide grumbled, pointing to it. The yellow Bot complied, with only a minimal amount of snickering, as Ironhide looked through a metal box and came up with something akin to a welding torch. He continued to mutter under his breath as he ensured that the wall wouldn't come down before it could get fixed. "Sam," Ironhide said, although Sam hadn't even known Ironhide had noticed him, "you say one word about this to Optimus, and I'll-" whatever plans he had were lost to a frenzy of curses, as part of the wall crumbled more.

"Can I go now?" Bee asked, having finished fixing his side of the wall. Ironhide sighed and nodded.

"Go ahead. I'll single-handedly make sure the building doesn't collapse and destroy everything. Don't feel bad or anything."

"Great, thanks. C'mon, Sam." Bee held out a hand for Sam, who climbed up. "Don't get buried under the building, Ironhide." Bee called out, leaving before Ironhide could put a dent in him with a metal beam. The repair complex overlooked the runway, the deserted pavement still dark from the recent rain, and Bee started towards the rest of the city. "What's got you so happy, anyways?" Bee asked, optics flickering down to Sam, who was sitting in Bee's hand, "...it's nice." Before, if Sam closed his eyes, he'd be able to match Bee's sweet, shy smile to the tone, but things had changed. He didn't need the visual anymore, didn't need to make that bridge between Bee's human and Bot form. No bridge was needed, as the void had at long last vanished. This was Bee, always.

"My dad called me" Sam grinned up at Bee, "and my mom's gonna be okay."

"That's great, Sam!" Bee sounded as happy as Sam felt; even so, there was a pause after it, and anxiety seemed to lurk in there somewhere. Sam was tempted to be confused by it – they were in the clear, what more was there to worry about? But he knew, was trying not to remember, that there could always be more to worry about.

“So, where're we going?"

"Well, since Ironhide destroyed half the repair complex, I'm off for the day."

"Sure you didn't have anything to do with that?"

"Not too much" Bee snickered, "at least... not really. Thought we'd go to the rec centre, see if I could catch Ratchet on his break. I'd hate to bug him while he's trying to work."

"I wouldn't feel bad about it." Sam leaned back on his hands, looking up, "I do it all the time and he hasn't killed me yet."

"Yet." They arrived at the building, at which point Bee lowered Sam to the ground.

"Human or holo?" Sam asked, hopping off Bee's hand onto the sidewalk.

"You got a preference?" Bee asked; Sam, admittedly, wasn’t sure what the right answer was. Should he prefer human, or was the holo more like home to Bee since he could also be a Bot at the same time?

“Both are you, so I like both,” Sam answered, at least sure of that. Bee smiled, a little shy.

This change of forms wasn't so much a transformation as a recreation. Bee's spark light flashed, and in a moment, every last bit of him had swapped composition, leaving him wholly human.

"Pretty cool." Sam started towards the building, Bee loping along beside him, "You never fail to impress me."

"Now how fair is that?" Bee pushed open the door to the stairwell and started taking the steps two at a time, "I have to change my entire form to impress you, and all you've gotta do to impress me is give me the same smile no matter what form I'm in. I work way harder than you do, that's for sure."

"You're kidding, that's what impresses you?" Sam hurried to keep up, nearly stumbling on the metal steps, Bee already at the second floor, "I don't even think about it when I do that."

"I know." Bee gave him a brilliant smile, "That's what impresses me." Sam could only follow mutely as Bee went ahead into the main room. He wasn't sure if it was good or bad that Bee was so impressed by the fact that Sam was able to realize that, Bot form or human form or even car form, Bee was always the same. It could have been good, that Bee was finally starting to see how Sam truly did care, but at the same time, he shouldn't have been so surprised.

"How is it that he's always here?" Bee mumbled under his breath, as Sam came up behind him.

"Who?" He looked around Bee, who wasn't moving out of the doorway, and his gaze fell upon Tanner, who was holding a cup of coffee and talking to Epps. "Ah. But, Bee" He started in a chiding tone, slipping a hand up the back of Bee's shirt, "remember what we talked about. Murdering is bad. Say it with me. Bad. Very bad."

"Yeah, yeah." Bee shivered with delight at Sam's touch, even as his tone was completely unconvincing. "Bad. I remember. Totally." He looked up again, and started snickering. "Looks like someone beat me to him anyways."

"Huh?" Upon closer examination, Sam saw that Tanner had a black eye, visible from all the way across the room. "Wonder where he got that. I'm gonna find out." He slipped past Bee and wove his way across the room. Soldiers were settled on the couch, a few playing a video game on the widescreen TV, the rest screaming something that didn't sound like encouragement at the players. He reached the other side of the room, where tables were grouped around the window, beside the Christmas tree that was still up. It was barely November, but all the decorations had stubbornly stayed up.

The mistletoe, Sam was amused to note, was gone.

"Hey, Sam" Tanner greeted him as if he hadn't received a death threat the last time Sam had come around, "What's up? You've been ditching class." Epps said a quick hello to Sam, then left to talk to another soldier.

"Yeah, I hang out with bad influences." Sam could practically feel Bee's stare. Bee just couldn't be convinced that Tanner wouldn't jump at Sam the moment the soldier saw him. He apparently wasn't satisfied with watching from a safe distance, because not a moment later, he was next to Sam, studying Tanner with a fair amount of dislike.

"I think we got off to a bad start." Tanner finally said to Bee, after practically quivering with fear.

"So that's what you're calling it?" Bee shrugged a shoulder, slipping his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Jeans, Sam noticed, that were tighter than those Bee had worn the previous day, and Sam really did like them. "I kind of had you marked for death, but being on the 'bad start' list is cool too, I guess."

"Okay. Great." Tanner smiled nervously. "I do owe you an apology. I don’t want you to think I’m unsupportive. I was just new to the whole concept of aliens, and dating one was another new concept. I really am sorry.”

Bee still looked guarded, like maybe Tanner was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

“Okay. It’s fine,” Bee said, and looked relieved when Ratchet came into the room, providing the perfect excuse for him to slip away.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Tanner said to Sam, sighed in defeat. “It’s just hard to wrap your head around if you’re still new to the entire idea of aliens existing.”

“I get it,” Sam agreed. All in all, Tanner hadn’t actually been that offensive, had mildly questioned how humans and aliens could date. Maybe not a well-timed question, but an understandable one.

“Just another part of my string of bad luck,” Tanner joked, “should have seen what happened yesterday!”

“What happened? Is this where the black eye came from?

“There was this guy,” Tanner started sheepishly. It was probably the way a lot of his stories started. “I hardly did anything, just _talked_ to him, and his boyfriend lost his mind.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know his name,” Tanner glanced around like he was looking for the guy, and shook his head. “Not here. But he was gorgeous. Like a hot, hipster lumberjack.” Sam nearly choked.

“A redhead?”

“How’d you guess?”

“That was Sunstreaker!” Sam managed to gasp out, unable to keep himself from laughing. “I’m surprised you’re _alive!_ How didn’t Sideswipe tear you apart?” 

“He tried,” Tanner scowled, “what exactly happened? I was there and I don’t understand.”

“Well, my best guess,” Sam said, trying fruitlessly to get his laughter under control, “is that you found Sunstreaker, the Bot who recently reappeared after five hundred years being separated from Sideswipe.”

“I _would_ somehow-” Tanner started to grumble, but then yelped and ducked behind Sam. “That’s him! Sideswipe!” Sam looked around, and although he did see Sideswipe wandering through, he was more interested in Bee, and the anxious expression on Bee’s face as he spoke to Ratchet. Sam wasn’t sure why Bee looked so ill-at-ease. As he watched, Optimus’s holo walked up behind Bee, and when Bee heard Optimus’s greeting, he jumped a little.

Optimus spoke with Bee for a little while, and when he turned his attention to Ratchet instead, Bee nearly bolted to return to Sam’s side.

“He say anything?" Sam asked, trying to look behind him to see Bee, who was practically attached to Sam's back, arms around him from behind.

"Just making sure I'm still being a good guardian" He leaned his forehead against the back of Sam's neck, "and he said that they found evidence that the Decepticons had been by the hospital. They'd been waiting for you."

"So you were right to not let me go." Sam traced his fingertip over Bee's hands, "so it'll all be okay now." Bee shifted against him, breath on Sam's neck. "And he doesn't know anything yet. So he can't do anything. We're safe."

"Guess so." He brushed his lips against Sam's neck. "Can't I kiss you yet? Optimus just left."

"Ratchet's still here. What if he mentioned it?"

"Yeah. He told Optimus about Sideswipe and Sunstreaker and all." Bee said sorrowfully, and Sam nearly forgot to breathe. Bee picked up on this shock, and elaborated, "He didn’t mean for things to happen that way, he was really, really sorry it ended up like that, but he feels obligated, as an officer. He'd never have separated them on purpose, he just thought Optimus had to know." Bee sighed. "So no kissing right now." Bee exhaled slowly, then let go of Sam with obvious reluctance. He cut a glance at Tanner, who was cowering a few feet away. "Don't you have a boyfriend to be stealing or something?"

"Not if he wants to live." Sideswipe's voice made Tanner's mouth drop open. He started to edge towards Sam to hide, but when he saw that Bee was still there, froze.

"I swear I didn't mean to" He managed to stammer out, "Really. Really. I didn't. Not at all."

"Good. Because he's mine, always has been," Sideswipe's dark hair was tousled, and he ran a hand through it in an attempt to fix it. It certainly was no secret what he'd been doing before coming to the rec centre; there was a bite mark on his skin, right between his neck and shoulder. From the looks of it, there was no danger that he was going to lose Sunstreaker to anyone.

"I didn't mean to. Really. I had no idea at all..." Tanner held up a hand in surrender, "Honest."

"Good. Because if you think that Bot is violent," He nodded towards Bee, who played it up and bared his teeth, "you haven't seen anything."

"I'm sorry!" Tanner practically whispered, eyes huge with fear. "Know what? I'm gonna go leave now and go back to work... because I had this... thing... that I have to do... with... work stuff. So, uh... bye..." He did his best not to run, but when he walked away, it was clear he wanted to get away as soon as possible.

"Do you enjoy scaring the poor guy to death?" Sam asked, and Sideswipe just grinned.

"He was asking for it. I'll be damned if I let him think that was even remotely okay." He paused to consider for a second, "although I wasn't the one to threaten to track him down and murder him in his sleep. That was Sunstreaker. And he really, really meant it, too." Sam snorted with laughter. Not only was Sideswipe territorial, Sunstreaker was so pleased with that possessiveness that he would fight for it too. "Well, I just came to find you guys. We're doing some meeting thing with the military guys. Hopefully excluding the little boyfriend-stealing asshole. Come on."

The meeting was held in a room on the thirtieth floor of a building Sam had never been in before. Sitting around the long table, he saw Ironhide, Ratchet, the twins, (who were poking each other with pencils), a handful of other military people he didn't recognize, and Arcee. Sunstreaker was at one corner, and beckoned for Sideswipe to take the empty seat next to him.

"Had a word with that Tanner guy again" Sideswipe said quietly as he sat down, making Sunstreaker smile.

"C'mon." Bee cast a nervous glance up at the head of the table, where Optimus was standing, talking to Lennox. He took the seat next to Sideswipe, Sam slipping in next to him. As soon as he scooted his chair closer to the table, he felt Bee's hand stray to his thigh.

"Did you scare him?" Sunstreaker whispered to Sideswipe, who shrugged in an imitation of modesty.

"Only a little. Told him I wasn't going to lose you to the likes of him." This made Sunstreaker laugh out loud, quickly smothering the sound in the quiet room, eyes still dancing.

As soon as the Secretary of Defense appeared on the video screen, Lennox started the discussion.

"We recently discovered evidence of a planned Decepticon ambush, which was foiled." He always had been able to use the Autobots' terms with ease, as if they belonged to his own language. “Please refer to File D173A.” Lennox slid a few pictures down the length of the table, presumably the contents of the file he’d sent to the Secretary. Bee's hand stilled on Sam's leg as his gaze fell on the picture. A ventilator in a hospital room had been smashed to pieces. "Arcee?" The brunette woman stood up, the hologram flickering slightly.

"Tire tracks were found outside, and inside a hospital room, we found several Decepticons posing as medical equipment." Her voice was in a harsh monotone; it seemed like she hadn't worked on her hologram as extensively as the other Bots had. Her features were more generic, similar to how Optimus’s hologram appeared, few personal touches. She nodded to Lennox and retook her seat.

"Now, we can only expect that they will come here." Optimus continued at Lennox's nod. "We need to start considering defense strategies, or, perhaps, offense." He went on to discuss the idea the others had already come up with, nothing Sam hadn't heard before, until something caught his attention. “It appears their intentions are to capture Sam, or anyone they can use for leverage, as indicated by some intercepted communications. We're going to do our best to avoid offense, but will not hesitate, should the need arise." Onscreen, the secretary of defense was nodding in agreement, listening as Optimus listed several plans, the Bots who would carry out each part.

"Perhaps now would be a good time for introductions," The Secretary gestured to someone behind him, "I have several new members to my team, and my colleagues are not all familiar with your team.”

"Of course" Optimus turned from the screen to the table. "We are again working closely with the Nest team, represented by Captain Lennox. And this is Ratchet, our medical officer. Ironhide, weapons specialist. Bumblebee, intelligence officer and scout."

"Promoted? Since when?" Sam mouthed. Bee shrugged a shoulder.

"Recently. Just means I work on engineering stuff too." he whispered back. Sam just nodded, watching Sideswipe drumming his fingers on the table. "Still your guardian, too."

"Good." Sam grinned at him, as Optimus went on.

"And Sideswipe, chief engineer. And Sunstreaker," Optimus paused, and did not follow up with a position.

"Do you have a new first lieutenant?" Another voice asked, as a man stepped into the screen behind the secretary of war. Lennox rolled his eyes; it was the man he'd managed to throw out of an airplane before.

Sam noticed Optimus glance to Sunstreaker, grateful when Bee leaned over for an explanation. "Sunstreaker had been second lieutenant." Bee whispered in Sam's ear. “After Jazz.”

"It would make for a better structure of leadership. Given the loss your team experienced," The man continued. Optimus looked back at Sunstreaker, who stepped closer to Sideswipe, and nodded.

"I agree. We have appointed a first lieutenant, Sunstreaker." The matter resolved, they continued their discussion in the direction of strategies.

"-and we do have reason to believe that the Decepticons will be much more... heavy-handed this time around" Lennox was saying, "Their attack this time, focused on Mrs. Witwicky, was different than their attacks last time. They are acting more strategically, as though they have more specific goals now."

"You believe they would escalate to-" the secretary of defense said hesitantly, and Lennox nodded.

"Destruction. Murder. Extreme attacks. This time, they will likely stop at nothing, because their forces are small and the consequences more dire. If they lose this attack, it will be the last, making the stakes higher than the last time. We were fortunate before."

"Fortunate?" The man Lennox so hated appeared onscreen again, "These beings brought them here. And we won't even broach the subject on how they came here in the first place." He narrowed his eyes in Bee's direction, and Bee sunk down in his seat.

            "He was under assignment" Optimus broke in. "And did just as he asked."

"Am I to understand that protection is his appointed duty?"

"Correct.”

"These NBE's were found in that boy's house." The man refused to say Decepticon, using the acronym for "Non-Biological-Extraterrestrials" which made Lennox sigh almost imperceptibly as the man went on, probably a skill Lennox had perfected over time. "How is it they weren't detected?" Sam glanced sideways to see Bee's reaction, and Bee had blushed a dark scarlet with shame and was staring at the tabletop, shoulders rigid. "You had a guardian not fifty feet from where it was found. That thing attacked a human, and it had been there for some time before that." Sam cut another glance at Bee, wanting to say he knew it wasn't Bee's fault at all, but Bee’s attention didn’t waver from the tabletop.

"The Decepticons use a very sophisticated cloaking-" Optimus's voice was sharp, but the man barreled on anyways.

"For someone trained to detect them? I find that hard to believe. And furthermore, that piece of the cube thing was in that house too. If this is the level of competence we can expect, we need to formulate our own strategies as well.”

            The meeting continued into a discussion of strategies and other updates. Sam was ushered from the room by Ratchet before long, leaving with a few members of Lennox’s team; Sam presumed the confidentiality level of the meeting would increase after they left.

            He didn’t want to be caught lingering in the hallways, looking like he was eavesdropping, so he went back to the rec building to wait for Bee. It didn’t appear Bee had the same thought, though, because an hour later, he still hadn’t come, so Sam set off looking for him.

Sam headed across the street to one of the Bot buildings. He tried a door on the side and found it unlocked, so he stepped into the dark hallway. It wasn't a building he recognized, and didn't look like somewhere Bee would be. Sam was about to double back, but his fingers slipped from the metal door and it slammed shut behind him, locking him into the corridor. Well, fine. He'd find another way out.

"What?" A voice from the room at the end of the hall made him jump. Sam crept through the dark hallway until he could see the area it led to. The area was mostly dark, housing two sleek cars. It looked like the building was a parking garage, enclosed for higher-ranking officials, maybe.

            “You’re so different.” Sunstreaker’s voice. Sam ducked down behind the pony wall before him. When he peeked around the corner, he saw Sunstreaker sitting on the corvette hood, Sideswipe beside him.

            “I know.” Sideswipe’s voice bordered on apologetic.

            “You’ve always needed me, but you haven’t hated it in quite this way.” It was a confusing statement, at least to Sam, who couldn’t picture why Sideswipe would hate needing his own partner. Then again, in light of the centuries of separation, maybe he could.

            “You being gone showed me how much I need you.”

            “And yet, you still hate me for it.” Sunstreaker sounded almost amused.

            “You’re everything I am, of course I do. And then you’re better. That’s why I love you.” They were the same, in an odd way. They had the same faults, but to different degrees, balanced them out in different ways. “Only you could love me,” Sideswipe said, nearly a murmur.

“I was made for it.” He said it like he knew, like he had been there at his own creation and understood the plans. And Sam – he understood. The realization came without fanfare, like he’d known it all along, and was only putting a name to a familiar taste. He loved Bee. That was what Sam did: loved Bee.

Sunstreaker shifted around, reached for Sideswipe. “Things won’t be the same as they were, first lieutenant or not.”

            “I won’t go through that again,” Sideswipe said; there was a finality, a sureness, that felt dark.

            Sam slipped away, back down the hallway he’d come from. He was grateful that a good thump with his shoulder made the door open again, not locked but merely jammed. He darted out before the noise could bring the two Bots to investigate, and continued on his search for Bee.

            As he started in the direction of the hanger, the next item on his list of places to search for Bee, Sam replayed the overheard conversation in his mind. It was almost amazing, the way they fit together. Flawed, imperfect, and yet perfectly joined.

"Bee? You here?" Sam reached the hanger and looked through the doorway. He smiled when he spotted Bee sitting against the wall, and went over to join him. "I've been looking everywhere for you."

"Sorry." Bee's hand slid into Sam's, squeezing gently. “Heavy meeting. I wanted to think about it.”

"You couldn't have known the Decepticons were there,” Sam said, because he knew it was what Bee was thinking about, agonizing over. “And obviously you've been a great guardian, because I'm still alive."

"I didn't do anything."

"Sure you did. Imagine if someone else had been my guardian, like Sideswipe. He would have killed me himself." This finally got a small smile from Bee. "So you've done fine. Don't worry about me." This made Bee shake his head.

"Of course I'm worried about you, Sam" Bee's voice was tight, strained, "Especially now."

"Why now?"

"Like they said. You didn't take the bait. The Decepticons set it up so you would go to the hospital and they would have gotten you there, but you didn't go. Now that your mom's going to leave the hospital and they still haven't gotten what they wanted-" Sam's eyes widened when he saw where Bee was going with his words, wanted to beg him not to say it, not to make it real, "they'll come here next." Sam wasn't thinking about himself, however. If the Decepticons had hurt his own mother, he knew who they'd target next.

"What about you?" he managed to ask. Bee looked nonplussed. "They went after my own mother. They're trying to get at me through people I care about."

"So?"

"So, don't you think you're at the top of that list?"

“But I’m near you,” Bee sighed. “I can’t keep you safe from that.” He tilted his head back to the wall, going quiet again.

“I ran into Sideswipe and Sunstreaker,” Sam offered, to change the subject. “They talk like they hate each other sometimes.”

“Well, sure,” Bee seemed genuinely surprised that Sam hadn’t known that. “They fight all the time. It’s because they’re so similar, all the same flaws.”

“So how can they also be in love?”

“I think…” Bee’s expression grew thoughtful. “They’re so amazed that someone can make those bad qualities seem so good. They have the same like… base traits, but they act on them in different ways. They inspire each other, maybe, to be better.”

“You inspire me,” Sam said, without entirely meaning to. Bee blushed, smile shy. “You’re a good guardian, Bee. I feel safe with you.” He leaned over to kiss Bee, couldn’t tell him _I love you_ but could tell him this.    

Neither heard the footsteps, or realized that they were being watched, until a deep voice broke the silence.

"What is going on here?"


	16. Chapter 16

“First lieutenant. I can’t believe you.”

            Sunstreaker leaned against the hood, saying nothing. Sideswipe was angry, the kind where he kept returning to what upset him, circling it and circling it.

            “He kills you, and you go back to him.”

            “Someone had to,” Sunstreaker said.

            “It didn’t have to be you. What kind of message are you trying to send him? That what he did is okay? That you _forgive_ him?”

            “No one has to forgive anyone in order to move on. We just have to keep going.”

            At this, Sideswipe finally looked at him; Sunstreaker wished he could be angry, could be here and swept away entirely by anger, instead of this riptide, love and frustration and longing for understanding and desperation all churning together. Sideswipe could deactivate him, and in Sunstreaker’s last moment, all he’d feel was love.

            “It won’t happen again,” Sunstreaker tried to insist.

            “You trust him?” Sideswipe scoffed. This was new, caused; he used to be able to trust others. Sunstreaker took that from him, by dying.

            “I have to.”

            “You don’t owe him that. You don’t owe him anything.”   

            “But I do.” Sunstreaker didn’t want to tell him, shouldn’t have said anything. He’d always been terrible at keeping things from Sideswipe. “I owe him everything.”

            “He _killed_ you.”

            “Exactly!” Sunstreaker finally burst out, “he killed me, but he didn’t kill you. Why do you think he deactivated his second lieutenant, instead of someone lower ranking? Why me and not you?”

            “Because you started all this! You – you started this! You told me you loved me.” Sideswipe was nearly pleading, wild with the need for Sunstreaker to take it back, to undo everything; maybe it would always be the thing he wanted most.

            “No. He spared you because I begged him to.”

            Sideswipe knew what Sunstreaker hadn’t, though; Sunstreaker could see it on his face, saw it every day. “You’re the one who got off easy.” It was quiet, not nearly as angry as Sideswipe probably meant it to be.

            It hadn’t been a hard choice, because Sunstreaker hadn’t understood. Save Sideswipe, it had seemed obvious. Sunstreaker hadn’t known how much Sideswipe loved him, that offering himself to be deactivated as much as killed Sideswipe.

            “I didn’t think you loved me so much that-”

            “ _You didn’t know.”_ Flat, snarled. He hadn’t, he hadn’t known, he just wanted to save the Bot he loved desperately, it had seemed like the only way. He’d thought it would be worse to be deactivated, he hadn’t meant to do what he’d done.

            “I wished I didn’t love you,” he begged, just wanted Sideswipe to – to understand. To forgive him. Loving Sideswipe was what had brought this down on them; in that moment, wild and desperate and pleading, he’d wished they’d never met, they’d never loved, they’d never crossed the galaxy and found each other.

            Sideswipe turned away again. “I wish you didn’t either.”

\--

            Sam wished he could understand the words in Bee’s silence. Bee was sitting beside him, and while Sam fidgeted, Bee was still, staring at the floor.

            “He might understand,” Sam tried. Bee said nothing, but he held Sam’s hand tightly. “He can’t do anything to you.”

            “Sam,” Bee finally spoke, and it was so soft and gentle in the midst of the hard silence, “that’s not what matters to me.”  

            The door opened. Ratchet crossed the room to sit in a chair in the row across from theirs. He pursed his lips. “Bee, I’m not going to do anything terrible.” Bee sat up even straighter, but didn’t release Sam’s hand.

            “But you told Optimus about Sideswipe and Sunstreaker.”

            “I did.” Ratchet looked between them. “I regret that.”

            “You do?” Sam blurted. “I mean – tactically?” He cringed at the awkward question. Ratchet didn’t look offended, though.

            “In the time since I made that decision, I’ve learned more about what’s best for everyone. I would not repeat that mistake. But,” he paused, and Sam drew in a nervous breath, “this is a different situation.” Sam’s gaze darted to Bee; Bee’s face was pale. Sam would hate to see Bee hurt, would fight even harder to save Bee than himself. “How serious is this?”

            For a moment, neither spoke. Sam didn’t want to leap in and explain that he loved Bee, wanted to stay together as long as possible, couldn’t live without him. Before either could speak, there was the sound of a door slamming outside.

            “If I could, I’d have stopped loving you!” Sideswipe was yelling, audible even from across the street.

            “ _I’d_ have stopped loving _you!”_ Sunstreaker’s shout was just as loud, the air on fire with their anger.

            “You can’t, because then you’d _hate yourself!”_

            The sound of an engine roaring off filled the air. Ratchet sighed. Another engine, fading into the other direction.

"Are you like them?" Finally, a question Sam could answer honestly.

"No."

Ratchet had probably been asking if they had that sort of love, where they couldn’t stop being in love, but Sam decided he was asking about the fighting.

“We never fight like that,” Bee agreed. Ratchet nodded, but like he wasn’t listening.

"I won't tell Optimus. I'll leave it to you to tell anyone else." They got up to leave, but as Sam was about to follow Bee into the hallway, Ratchet called him back.

"I'll catch you later," Sam turned back, but Bee caught him by the elbow, pulling him back for a kiss. Sam wanted to ask why he looked so anxious, but couldn't.

Once Sam was reseated in his chair, he realized why Bee had looked so nervous. Ratchet looked more concerned than Sam wanted to imagine the reason for.

"Sam, are you sure you two are not serious? Because while I have no way of knowing what Bee truly feels, your pheromone levels suggest something different than you've said."

"Can Bee read it too?" Sam knew he'd given himself away, but couldn't really be bothered to have a panic attack at the moment.

"He keeps those monitors off, unless specifically requested otherwise, and can't access then in his human form. He says receiving so much information at once feels invasive."

"Oh. Okay." Sam was able to relax only until he realized that Ratchet was still watching him. "would it be... bad? If he did love me? I mean, I can't do anything to keep that from happening. The only thing I can do is pretend that I don't love him. Would it be bad?"

"It would be difficult." the words were less than comforting, despite the gentle tone. "It would be hard enough to lose a loved one. But to live so long after they've gone, able to remember every moment in absolute precision? No one can live in the past the way an Autobot cam. It would be agony, to say the least."

"So what can I do? I can't stop him from feeling any certain way. I can barely keep from telling him I love him!" Sam just wanted a way to rid them of the ever-stalking misery. Ratchet stood, going to look out the window at the empty building across the street.

"I'm sorry I don't have an answer for you.”

"Yeah." Sam wished more than anything that he meant more to Bee, but it was easier to accept the reality when he realized it hurt Bee less. If Bee didn’t love him, one day Sam would leave him and one day, Bee would forget him.

\--

It was easy to see why Tanner had gone after Sunstreaker, Sam observed, watching Sunstreaker wash paint off the ground outside the hanger; apparently, he’d snuck up on the twins while they were repainting the wall they’d wrecked, startling them into flinging paint everywhere, and the ensuing cleanup was Sunstreaker’s responsibility. Sunstreaker had switched to his holo form, so he could use the water hose. It was unfair, how flawless his holo was.

Ratchet had said the default holo was a projection of what they would look like if they were human, some approximation of their Bot traits being translated to human. The Twins' holos were skinny and tall, but Sunstreaker, while he had the height, was apparently more broad than lanky. Sam could see why Tanner had been so attracted to him, if he was being honest.

Sunstreaker flicked water at Sam. "Are you really this bored?"

"Nothing better to do. Bee's busy."

"Ah. I think he's at engineering with Sideswipe." There was a bitter note in his tone that Sam couldn’t convincingly pretend to miss.

"You aren't going to leave him, are you?" Sam asked; Sunstreaker actually laughed.

"Never. Leave Swipe? I could never do that."

"Why not? I mean-" Sam hesitated, "not to be... mean or anything... But he's kind of a... Uh..."

"He's a stubborn, hateful, insufferable bastard," Sunstreaker finished helpfully. Sam stared. "You're surprised? You should hear what he says about me."

"But... you... and him..."

"Of course. There's no one in any world that I love more. But love comes in different forms. I might hate my lover because he's everything I hate in myself, and you might love yours because he's everything you're not and more, but I couldn't live without mine and neither could you." He turned off the water hose. "We still fight, though." The sorrowful note made Sam look up at him.

"Was it... worse this time?" he ventured. Sunstreaker shrugged.

"Kind of. He said things I didn't want to hear. And I suppose I did the same. We'll always have our problems."

Sam knew his and Bee's problem- they didn't know what mattered most, their relationship, or everything else.

"So... What is your problem?"

"Our problem?" Sunstreaker sighed heavily, "Our problem is that you can't prove to someone just how much you love them."

The yellow Camaro purred up and Bee's holo materialized behind Sam. He wound his arms around Sam, chin on Sam's shoulder.

"Sideswipe said to tell you that you're still wrong," he said to Sunstreaker, who nodded.

"Typical. Anything else?"

"Um..." he pressed his lips to Sam's neck, taking his time, "asked him to come tonight," he nudged his hips forward to bump Sam, "with us. And you."

"I don't want to go anywhere with him. Where to?"

"Club," Bee purred with delight as Sam slid his hands over Bee's wrists.

"Gonna come with?" Sam asked Sunstreaker, trying to keep his focus as Bee licked at his neck.

"As long as I don't have to speak to that bastard, fine."

A few hours later, the two most dedicated lovers Sam had ever seen didn't exchange a single word during the entire car ride to the city. They took Sunstreaker's car form, but the Camaro trailed along behind anyways because, as Bee said, he and Sam wouldn't want to share a car with the other two on the way back. At the moment, though, they weren't speaking, Sideswipe slouched in the drivers seat next to Bee, and Sam in the backseat with Sunstreaker.

Once they’d arrived and gone inside the club, Sam was sure Bee's plan had failed.

"It's not working." Sam could see both dancing, each with a scantily clad girl neither was capable of having any interest in. Bee prodded at the glass Sideswipe had left on the table.

"It'll work. They never needed the help before, this is just to speed up the process." He took a sip and made a face. "Gross, that's strong."

"It's vodka, it should be. You've never tried it before?" Bee shook his head no, and frowned at something over Sam’s shoulder.

"Now how's that gonna help?" Sam turned, to see that Sunstreaker had decided to make Sideswipe jealous by kissing a girl like she was sweeter than Sideswipe was to him.

"I'm sure they'll work it out." He stood, beckoning to Bee, who eagerly jumped up and followed.

Sam all-but forgot about Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. He had his back against Bee's hard chest, Bee's hands guiding his hips in a hard, fast rhythm. Bee had worked on his holo- he felt real, with the way sweat glistened on his tan skin, and heat radiated from his body, along with other details that Sam really, really liked. Sam managed to detach his attention long enough to spot Sideswipe pulling Sunstreaker away and kissing him hard. Reassured, he gave his full attention back to Bee, grinding his hips against Bee and earning a hot kiss for his efforts.

\--

Sideswipe either stopped caring about or forgot about their fight, he wasn't sure which. It was far better to lose himself in the burning sweetness, like electricity was sparking inside him. Sunstreaker pressed against him, the roughness in his touch hissing that he had yet to forgive.

Within moments, both holos had vanished and reappeared in the sports car's backseat. It was parked in a far, deserted corner of the carpark in the complete darkness, aided by darkened windows. Sunstreaker pushed Sideswipe down onto the seat.

"You meant it, didn't you?" he bit at Sideswipe's lower lip, tongue then probing for the sweet electricity he sought, "you always mean it." Sideswipe slid his hands up under Sunstreaker's shirt, fingertips flicking over hot skin.

"Meant what?" he arched up when Sunstreaker settled in his lap, none-too gently.

"You hate me that much." He leaned down to work at the buttons on Sideswipe's shirt, red hair spilling over his shoulder.

"Hate myself more. You know that better than I do." He gasped when Sunstreaker's hands sunk lower, turning his face into Sunstreaker's shoulder and holding back a moan. "Doesn't mean I don't hate you, though"

"You're a real bastard." Sideswipe let Sunstreaker shove him over roughly. "You'd even kiss a girl to piss me off.”

"You do it too." Sideswipe's words faded into hisses of pain and pleasure. Had he been human, he would have been hurting even more, and Sunstreaker made sure he could feel it on every level, surpassing human pain. Despite the pain Sunstreaker delighted in causing him, Sideswipe always let Sunstreaker do whatever he wanted to. It could have been because it was what he wanted too, but Sunstreaker could tell the difference. It wasn't just that, not just that he could easily, so effortlessly control Sideswipe. It was also that Sideswipe had no choice in the matter, like his body was telling him where his loyalty was- not to himself. Sunstreaker delighted in the rapturous moans he heard at his hard movements. Sideswipe groaned curses, back arching at Sunstreaker's touch. Sunstreaker thrusted up into the tight heat, Sideswipe arching to meet the thrusts. The strangled gasps fell to reaction-craving ears, urging Sunstreaker to push him closer, closer to the edge, then miles beyond it. Sunstreaker had to stifle a shout, covering Sideswipe's mouth with his hand to silence his as well.

It wasn't until he was settled against Sideswipe that he spoke again.

"Do you wish I'd let him kill you?" Sideswipe was silent and Sunstreaker could feel his still- uneven breaths.

"I don’t want you to have gone through what I did instead.” Sometimes, he hated to hear how deeply Sideswipe loved him; it made this so much harder. There were things about Sideswipe he hated, and how could he, when Sideswipe loved him this way?

"I wish I could lie to you." He shivered when Sideswipe kissed his neck.

"Now why would you want to do that? You can't. Never could." He bit at Sunstreaker's bare shoulder, pearly teeth ravishing the hot skin.

"I wish I could tell you I didn't hate you." Having admitted the guilt he hated to have, he fell silent, just hoping Sideswipe wouldn't say anything to make him feel worse. It was exactly the sort of thing Sideswipe would do, unintentionally.

Not tonight, though.

Sideswipe wrapped his arms around Sunstreaker, kissing his neck softly, enveloping him in the strong, comforting touch only he could give.

"That you can possibly love me despite how much you hate me is extraordinary, and enough for me.”

            --

            Sam absolutely adored how much Bee loved to be pleasured in any way. He already acted like Sam was wonderfully giving, to allow Bee to be with him. The delightful sounds Bee made when Sam kissed him were always sweeter than the last time.

They'd gone looking for Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, around a corner to an area of empty tables and, when Bee was looking around for them, Sam pushed him into the wall. Bee all-but shrieked with delighted shock, letting Sam hold him there.

"Looks like your plan with them worked" Sam said, "you're brilliant."

"Sure" Bee grinned, failing at modesty, "lovers like that can't be kept apart. They've got this-" he gasped when Sam physically lifted him and pinned him against the wall, hands under Bee's thighs, "magnetic draw" he finished breathlessly, groaning and clenching his hands in Sam's shirt as Sam rocked his hips roughly against Bee, "oh fuck, do that again."

Sam was more than happy to comply, hoisting Bee up and continuing, to Bee's needy whimpers. He attacked Bee's lips at the same time- he could never get enough of the sweet, electric taste that was purely Bee. One of Bee's hands slipped through Sam's hair, fingers twisting into the curls, as a moan escaped him. Sam shifted his hands up higher on Bee's thighs, earning a hiss of delight from Bee, as he nearly fell from squirming around so much. Sam pressed him against the wall to cease his wiggling, rocking his hips harder against Bee.

            “We should go,” Sam whispered, and Bee nodded in agreement, let Sam lead him by the hand, dazed and happy to go anywhere with him.

Sam felt sheepish to admit it, but he almost liked leaving the club as much as being there. It was because he was so tired, the inside of the Camaro was so warm, and Bee was so sweet, curled up beside him. Dancing so long had left him running low on power, so all he wanted to do was stay where he was, tracing his fingertip over Sam's chest. Whenever Bee was curled against his chest like this, Sam was just thankful to be there – wherever, holding Bee. He hoped that, if fate could possibly look his way with compassion, he always would be.

Bee was blinking sleepily, something Sam recognized as Bee needing to sleep or recharge. He was probably diverting the most power to his car form, leaving little for the holo.

"Can I ask you something?" Bee asked. Sam nodded yes. "Think we could ever be like them? Sideswipe and Sunstreaker?"

"I don't think I could ever fight with you like that." Sam frowned, but Bee shook his head no.

"I mean… I don't know. You really couldn't?"

"Never" Sam promised, kissing Bee's forehead. "Now, much as I love you right here, you're also driving, and you don't have enough power to be a holo too."

"Now I know what it's like to have a mother" Bee teased, but he raised himself enough to give Sam a sweet kiss, then vanished.

Sam settled back into the seat, already missing Bee's warm weight on him. He never saw the police car come shooting out of an alleyway.

He never got the chance to give a warning.


End file.
